


Sacred Ground

by malyce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Wolfram and Hart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malyce/pseuds/malyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wolfram and Hart hire a surprising new assassin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Fluorescent lights flickered in the police station. Incoherent voices echoed off the cold concrete walls. Angel and Wesley were seated on two under stuffed cushions with plastic exterior coverings. Angel’s coat was draped over the seat to his left. He had not taken his eyes off of the opposite wall for nearly five minutes. To an uninformed observer, it would appear that he was blankly staring into space. His friend knew him better than that. Angel was emotionally exhausted from the events of the previous two days. Buffy had stormed out of the station nearly an hour before. Faith was in another room, giving her testimony. Another case was closed, another chapter over. He wasn’t sure whether or not the previous series of events would make an appearance in the file folders back at Angel Investigations. Perhaps they would be left unrecorded and treated as though they had never happened. At the moment, Angel was waiting to say goodbye to Faith.  
  
“It’s strange, you know,” Wesley said, “in all the time I’ve known Faith, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything close to peace in her eyes. This is the best place for her to work out some of her inner demons.” He wasn’t expecting Angel to respond; he had only made the observation to fill the silence.   
  
Familiar footsteps made their way to the anteroom of the precinct. Wesley jumped to his feet when he saw her. Angel made no movement.  
  
  
“Hello, Kate,” he said darkly. His brown eyes didn’t move from the opposite wall.  
  
“Angel,” she acknowledged him. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, but it was benign enough to let Wesley know that she had no immediate plans to stake his boss, “just when I think I have everything figured out, you come here with a serial killer who wants to turn herself in.” Angel smoothly turned to face her and lifted his eyes to hers. Wesley remained behind them, watching every movement in this impromptu truce.  
  
“Where is Faith?”  
  
“She’s gone already,” Kate glanced at the long scars on Wesley’s face, “Faith said that there was someone she wasn’t ready to see yet. I can only assume she means you,” she gestured in his direction, “but she wanted me to thank you both on her behalf.”  
  
Angel visibly relaxed, and moved his coat out of her way. He gestured for Kate to join them. She took one nervous look at his face as though expecting his vampiric face to show itself. She politely shook her head at the offer.  
  
“Her hearing has yet to be scheduled, but I’m in charge of the interviews and pretty much everything pertaining to this case. She confessed to more than twenty-five murders," Kate continued, ignoring his interjection, "Of course, we could only prosecute her for about 9 of those, because the rest weren't human. Therefore, they have no identity. Legally, more than half of her victims don‘t exist. I‘m not a lawyer, but I‘m guessing that could be a good thing."   
  
Angel paused.  
  
“Kate… what are you doing?” She grimaced.  
  
“I think I owe you an apology. I let my emotions be manipulated by someone who obviously had an ulterior motive…”  
  
  
“Lindsey Macdonald?” Angel asked. Kate gaped at him.  
  
“I’m dying to ask you how you knew that.”  
  
“Lucky guess,” he admitted. Kate glanced at the door with an amused expression.  
  
“Your friend is here,” she said. Angel turned around to see Cordelia shoving her way through the group of people near the entrance. A new looking leather jacket was draped over her arm. She apparently didn’t notice the indignant expressions of the other police officers. Kate suppressed a grin, and then returned her attention to Angel.  
  
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’m not saying that things are going to change with us, but I have a feeling that something bad could happen, be it to Faith, to you, or to everyone involved. You’re going to need my help, and I’m going to need yours.”  
  
Angel nodded his agreement.  
  
“I’ll keep in touch in anything new comes up with Wolfram and Hart.”  
  
“Thank you. I’ll talk to you soon.”   
  
  
As she departed, Wesley grimaced.  
  
“Sadly enough, that’s the nicest thing any woman has said to you in the last forty-eight hours,” he paused, “Speaking of…” he nodded in Cordelia’s direction. She rubbed a vigorous circle into her temple.  
  
“Vision?” Angel inquired.  
  
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she said, “and it hurts like Hell.”  
  
“What did you see?” he asked. She glared at him.  
  
“Don’t get me any ice for my headache,” she drawled sarcastically, “Really, I don’t feel like my brain has been severed by a rusty can opener.” Although he didn’t breathe, the vampire made the motion of inhaling air and letting out an irritated sigh. Wesley took her coat.   
  
“Sit down here and tell us what’s going on,” he suggested. Cordelia collapsed on the plastic couch.  
  
“I saw you and Buffy bring Faith in here,” she told him.  
  
“And?” Angel asked.  
  
  
“And my head is killing me.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“But nothing,” Cordelia said, “I saw you walk in here with Buffy. She was angry.”  
  
“Was she? She hid it very well.” he growled. Cordy moved her hand from in front of her eyes.  
  
  
  
“Look, you asked me what I saw, and I’m telling you. I can’t help it that the PTB sent me this lame ass vision. I don’t know what it means.”  
  
“I think,” Wesley interrupted, “that it meant you were needed here, Cordelia.” She put a hand to her forehead again.  
  
“I still feel it,” she moaned, “Everything that Buffy felt. I’ve never seen her like-” Wesley gently put a finger to his lips to signal that she should be quiet, but it was too late. Angel had already retrieved his coat and walked out.   
  
“Uh oh,” Cordelia grimaced, “I missed something, didn’t I?” Wesley adjusted his glasses.  
  
  
“A lot, “ he sighed, “Thankfully, it’s over and done with. Where did you go with your vacation time?" She grimaced.   
  
"Promise not to tell?"   
  
"That depends." he said. She took a seat on the couch.   
  
"I went to see my parents."   
  
"Let me see if I understand. You had ten days paid vacation, and you went to see your parents? I thought you were planning to visit Tahiti." She cringed.   
  
"I gave the money to Mom, okay? She's supposed to be making donations to the 'get my dad out of jail already' foundation when she's not too busy taking prescription drugs and having affairs with all his friends... God, that's so disgusting and wrong, I can't believe she had to tell me about that... anyway, I just wanted to help them. Since Faith was here, and she's already beaten me senseless, I had a decent excuse," she moaned, and put a hand to her forehead again.   
  
"An excuse?"   
  
"Yeah. I took the train back as soon as I saw what was going on,” she grimaced, “I still can’t believe she turned herself in. And Buffy… I can tell. It shook both of them up. It was about an hour ago, and I’m still feeling that headache.” She closed her eyes, “What exactly happened, anyway?”  
  
"They got into an argument, and harsh things were said on both sides. She has a new boyfriend now, and she…”  
  
  
“Rubbed it in Angel’s face?”  
  
“You weren't there, Cordelia, perhaps you should be so..."   
  
"If my head wasn’t killing me…“ she groaned, “Why did Buffy come here, anyway? Doesn’t she know that it’s my job to commit extreme acts of bitchiness around here?”  
  
“I suppose she missed the memo,” Wesley smiled.   
  
“You’re lucky I’m too tired to slap you,” she moaned.  
  
*****  
  
Her first visitor was someone she did not want to see. Faith had been expecting Angel, or even Wesley to wait for her on the other side of the plate glass. Instead, the face of the female lawyer who had tried to have her killed only days earlier was reflected on the smooth surface. Faith glared at Lilah and picked up the phone.  
  
"If you're here to kill me, this isn't very subtle,"   
  
  
"If I was here to kill you..." Lilah began.  
  
"I'd be dead." Faith interrupted, "I know, I know."  
  
"I was going to say that I would do it while you were trapped in your cell like a caged animal, but have it your way. How do you like your new living space, anyway?"   
  
"Small," Faith admitted, "It's about five feet by five feet... and that had better be a coincidence. It's a fixer upper, but the interior decorator should be coming by next Monday. I don't have a roommate yet. Know any nonsmokers who hate lawyers that might want a place to stay? The rent's free, after you kill a certain number of people."  
  
"Nice defense mechanism you're using," Lilah smirked.  
  
"A defense mechanism would be kicking your ass right out the front doors," Faith informed her. So far, so good. Her banter with Lilah hadn't revealed any of her insecurity. At this rate, she could dance all night with the sharp tongued lawyer, "Now, is there a reason you're here? The sooner you get on with the death threats, the sooner I can laugh at you, and the sooner the boys in blue escort your Gucci covered ass out of my life."  
  
"I have an alternate proposal," Lilah said softly. The telephone receiver barely transmitted the phrase to Faith's ears, "We can triple what we were paying you before, get you out of jail, and out of the country." She smiled at Faith's hesitation, at the fear in her eyes.   
  
"All right," she said.  
  
"Really? You'll take the offer?" Lilah chirped.  
  
  
"Sure. After I've had my lobotomy and Hell freezes over." Faith leaned forward and smirked at Lilah, "Listen, you power suited money hungry bitch, if you ever come near me again, I will rip your head off, no matter how much more time I have to do for it. You wanna come after me? Do it right." With a victorious smile, Faith slammed the receiver down and wagged her fingers. She could barely hear Lilah yelling on the other side of the glass.  
  
****  
  
The picture window in the office labeled "McDonald" faced east, which meant that it was completely unbearable to look outside until about noon. Lindsay McDonald looked almost like an otherworldly being with his chair turned away from the blasting sunlight. He was pouring over a single sheet of printer paper.  
  
Lindsey had to say he was impressed as he looked the new hired assassin; rather, he looked her up and down. She was attractive, polite, and... well, human. He hadn't met with another human being who wore a suit and didn't want to chat about whatever monster he was defending and his brilliant job in the courtroom of rousing sympathy from the jury.  
  
In her perfect white suit with matching heels and real pearl jewelry, she looked like a younger, more innocent Lilah Morgan; maybe not so innocent.  
  
"This offer is more than reasonable, and you have the experience we're looking for, but you have to understand where we are right now. We've already lost two assassins, and the number of marks has tripled. Do you think you can handle that?"  
  
The young girl in the pressed, white linen suit made a show of looking indignant.  
  
"I think I know what I'm up against."  
  
  
"Of course you do," he gestured emphatically towards her resume, then ripped it up.  
  
"Hey! That took some time to type up!" she whined. She had gone from professional assassin to demanding teenager in zero point three.  
  
"No paper trails." He opened his palm, and let the little bits of paper drift like snowflakes into the wastepaper basket, "but believe me, all the time you spend is more than appreciated, Miss Summner."  
  
"Summers," she said, "My name is Buffy Summers."  
  
"Buffy. I have to say, it's quite an honor to meet a slayer such as yourself. You're not a bit like that Faith girl, are you? She's been a little bit of trouble to us." She gave him her best charming smile.  
  
"You have no idea," was all she said.  
  
"Your friend put Lee Mercer on sick leave, but I think you should meet Lilah Morgan." He rose from his seat. Buffy was relieved when he finally moved out of the garish sunlight. Something about the demonic light shining all around him had made her extremely uncomfortable.   
  
"You're going to like Lilah. She's a tigress in the courtroom. She plays the "species discrimination in the workplace" better than anyone I've ever known... and there she is." Lilah had just stormed into Lindsey's office carrying an armful of papers.  
  
"No go?" Lindsey asked.  
  
  
  
"I want her dead," was Lilah's cryptic reply.  
  
"Hi," Buffy said nervously, "I'm Buffy Summers."  
  
Lilah looked disdainfully at Lindsey. "You brought the new intern?" Buffy looked highly offended, but Lindsey intervened before she could say anything.  
  
"This is our new 'clean up crew, Buffy Summers. Buffy, this is Lilah Morgan.'" He leaned over, and Buffy could hear him whispering. "She put Faith in a coma and sent our vampire to hell! She's the original slayer; she was involved with Angel for two years. "  
  
Buffy's uncomfortable smile was almost comic, given the situation. Lilah became much friendlier.  
  
  
  
"Lilah Morgan. You have good taste; bad judgment, but good taste. There should be a contract in my office. Why don't you come with me?"  
  
The three of them left Lindsey's plush office, and Buffy followed the two lawyers down the hall. Her eyes had grown wide as Lindsey led her into the closed off hallways. They were lined with plush, royal red carpeting that made her feel like she was walking on sand whenever she took a step.  
  
"This whole place... It's so beautiful!" she said. Lindsey grinned.  
  
  
"Wait until you see the recreation room." Buffy's eyes went wide.  
  
"You guys get a recreation room?!?"  
  
"I'll show you later. It's great," he opened the last door on the left, and she followed him inside.  
  
Lilah Morgan's office was even more picturesque than Lindsey's. She had a smaller window, but it was lined with expensive furniture. There was a snack machine in the corner, and a vibrating chair in another corner. Buffy could only stare at the contents of the office. She was under the spell of the picture window, the black leather couches, and the distinctive taste and feel of money that seemed to be in the air and water. Lilah began to search the contents of a file cabinet for the necessary paper.  
  
"You like this office?"  
  
"It's nice."  
  
"Nice? I could fill a book with the list of benefits we get here," she said. Lindsey noticed the way she was taking in every detail around her.  
  
"Have you ever thought about being a lawyer, Buffy?"  
  
"Not until now," she answered honestly. When she looked back up at the pair, her eyes were shining like a five year old's. _Maybe Faith was on to something after all,_ she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

"God..." was all Faith could say. Her former watcher's sincere gaze met her shocked expression. Wesley was wearing a grey shirt with dark blue jeans. She winced when she saw the scars on his lips and face; of course, there were others that only the two of them could map. Faith herself had inflicted them.  
  
Faith wanted to look away from the trail of scars she had mapped down his body. She looked down at the phone, at the wall, at those annoying fluorescent lights that never seemed to stop flickering. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone.  
  
"Hello," His voice sounded so disembodied and strange. She nodded at him on the other side of the glass, trying not to let her resolve be cracked by inevitable tears.  
  
"Wesley," she said calmly into the mouthpiece. He gave her a tiny smile.  
  
"Angel said you had something you wanted to say to me."  
  
"I want to say a lot, actually, Wes," Faith admitted, "it's just so hard..." There was a moment of silence, and then a soft "I know." She shut her eyes.  
  
"So how are you?" Faith finally asked him.  
  
"I'll live." was his ironic reply, "I think the more important question is, how are you doing?" Faith shrugged, and leaned back in her chair. She allowed herself to be distracted by the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the humming activity of other people.  
  
"Are you happy here?" Wesley posed the question in a different way, and she decided to take the bait and give him his answer.  
  
"I...well, Life isn't exactly easy in maximum security prison, but it's better than..." She buried her face in her hands when the tears forced themselves out through her closed eyelids.  
  
"Wesley, I'm so sorry," she said. She heard him tapping on the glass. He gestured towards the phone, indicating that she had to speak into it. Faith picked it up and leaned her ear against the receiver. "I'm sorry.  
  
That's what I had to say."  
  
"You're forgiven. There are only a few scars," he said.  
  
"It's not just that. I... I'm sorry I wasn't a better slayer for you. I let you down, Wes." She saw him take an off white handkerchief out of his front pocket and instruct one of the guards to bring it to her. He unlocked the door and laid it on the table in front of her. She buried her face into it for the longest time. When she resurfaced, her visage was red and tear stained. She picked the phone back up.  
  
"My watcher used to carry these," she said.  
  
"Really?" "Yeah. You remind me a lot of her," said Faith, "I think that's why I treated you like shit." He wasn't sure how to respond to that.  
  
"Faith, you can't be too hard on yourself. If anything, you're a credit to me. No, to you." He placed a hand on the glass, "You've had to fight and conquer a powerful enemy inside yourself. Think about it- you're just an ordinary human being who's been given an enormous amount of power-"  
  
"And I abused it."  
  
"Don't go back to that now." She gave him a wry smile.  
  
"You don't act like someone that I've tortured nearly to death." He rose from his seat.  
  
"It comes with the job. Being a rogue demon hunter has its risks."  
  
"So does being a good person," Faith told him. When he turned around, his handprint remained on the glass. Faith watched it until it faded into invisibility.  
  
***  
  
Buffy wrinkled her nose as she looked over the menu.  
  
"Ugggh. What'd they do here? Stick 'The Little Mermaid' in a deep fryer?" Lilah gracefully unfolded her menu in a lady like manner.  
  
"This restaurant has depended on our firm for most of its business since it first opened.  
  
Buffy had to admit, it was luxurious. These people seemed to live and breath beautiful surroundings. The restaurant was covered completely with plush, red carpeting. There were round mahogany tables all over with only candles in the centers and dim lanterns from the ceiling for lighting. At the further wall, there was a golden statue of some deity or another. Looking at it made her slightly uncomfortable. Buffy had purposely chosen to sit with her back to the statue.  
  
The demon waiters she could have done without. All of the staff seemed to be a member of some sub-species. She had counted 4 different kinds. Their server for the evening was a light green scaly thing with disturbingly bright blue eyes that called itself Thoya. Buffy had already decided to let Lindsey order for her.  
  
"It's not all seafood," Lindsey was saying. He pointed to one particular item on the menu, "see that?" Buffy leaned over to see. She could smell the cologne from his collar. It was a dizzying sort of musky smell, and it was nothing like the light scent Riley wore or the incense that seemed to cling to Angel.  
  
"Key-drey flame-bera?" she asked. Lilah and Lindsey looked at each other and chuckled lightly.  
  
"Quidre Flambera," Lindsey told her.  
  
"Wow. That sounds kinda pretty. What is it?"  
  
"Grilled flesh from a Quidre desert demon," said Lilah.<  
  
"Ew."  
  
"No, it's really good," Buffy made a disgusted face.  
  
"Try it once?" Lindsey asked playfully, "for me?" He gave her the worst puppy face she had ever seen.  
  
"All right. For *you.*" she said with a touch of playful sarcasm. Buffy thought she saw a momentary flash of anger in Lilah's eyes, but it soon subsided.  
  
After menus were taken up, Lilah took out a mirror to retouch her makeup.  
  
"We have time to talk," she said, "the waiters here take an amazingly long time. Lindsey and I have been talking to Holland. We think that you might be useful as something, say, a little more permanent than a one time assassin."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes," said Lindsey, "I mean, we're asking you to kill an old friend. We can't very well just say, 'thanks, so long.' Plus... well, we've seen your SAT scores."  
  
"So," Lilah continued, "I understand you have family here?"  
  
"My dad."  
  
"If you were to transfer to UCLA to pursue law major," Lilah continued, "we'd make sure you got in." Buffy tried to cover up her emotions by unfolding a napkin in her lap.  
  
"That's really... something," she said.  
  
"And after you killed Angel, Faith, and Detective Lockley, there'd be a very cushy internship for you." said Lindsey.  
  
"I don't know..." Lindsey put a hand over hers.  
  
"You don't have to decide right away. We can discuss it further over dinner."  
  
Thoya brought their dishes after they'd engaged in ten minutes or so of small talk. He placed an oval platter of interesting looking brown stuff before Buffy. The longer she looked at it, the less appealing the thought of eating it became. There were blue orb type things swimming in it, and it smelled like her leather boots that had been left out in the rain. Lilah took a bite of her own unidentifiable substance, and her eyebrows went up.  
  
"Excellent," she said. Buffy was almost afraid to touch her dinner. Lindsey gave her a mocking smile.<  
  
"You're the slayer. Don't be afraid." Buffy rolled her eyes.  
  
"What grade are you in."  
  
"You'll be cool if you do it," Lilah said with a snicker. There was light laughter from Buffy and Lindsey. Finally, she grabbed some of the stuff between her chopsticks, held her breath and put it in her mouth.  
  
"This... this is actually good," she admitted. She smiled at Lindsey and continued eating her dinner. She had indeed been considering the chance they had offered her, and she already knew her answer.


	3. Chapter 3

"That's... that's great! I don't believe it!" Buffy screeched into the phone. She heard her father awaken in the next wrong, and reprimanded herself. She knew she wasn't his idea of an ideal houseguest, but she couldn't help it. Even before the time when she had begun to fulfill her duties as the slayer, Buffy had been a night person. Apparently, Riley shared this characteristic. He didn't mind talking on the phone at 1:45. in the morning. As she spoke, Buffy paced to the picture window of her father's new apartment to marvel at the spectacular view of the city. The lights from the buildings and the gridlock of traffic made it feel even more alive than the city did in the sunlit hours.  
  
"Isn't it great?" Riley asked. He was obviously waiting for Buffy to cheer. She didn't.  
  
"Wow. I can't believe you guys defeated Adam while... without me there." If he caught the hint of discouragement in her voice, he didn't say anything about it.  
  
"I know. One of the commanding officers managed to talk some sense into the people in charge," he said, obviously pleased, "Willow's friend was able to help her cast a spell; it's complicated, but she sort of immobilized the parts of his body that were flesh and blood. Once she did that, we still had the machinery to deal with. He shot all these lasers at our men..."  
  
Buffy had stopped listening to him. In her mind, he was beginning to sound like a little boy repeating the most exciting parts of the action movie he had just seen. The only part that had sunk in was that life in Sunnydale had gone on without her. Riley couldn't see her blinking back tears.  
  
No one needed her, and that stung worse than anything Angel had said to her in the past days. Willow had developed her talent in spell casting, and had seemed to be nearly invincible with the additional aid from Tara. Giles' years of study were put to use. Xander was... well, he was Xander. He invariably came up with something useful for the mission at hand. Riley had a secret government organization at his disposal! She had been away from home for three days, and the gap she'd left had been filled smoothly and seamlessly.  
  
"Wow. It sounds like you guys all did well on your own."  
  
"Oh, you should have been there!" he said excitedly.  
  
"Sorry I missed it," she murmured.  
  
"Me too," he replied, "So are you coming back soon?"  
  
She sighed, and put the phone to her other ear.  
  
"Riley, I'm not coming back." There was only heartbreaking silence on his end. Buffy glanced down at the sheet of notes Lilah had made for her.  
  
"I've been staying with my dad. I've shopped. I sat up until one o'clock in the morning eating ice cream in my pajamas and watching bad science fiction movies."  
  
"You can't do that here?"  
  
"No, I can't."  
  
"I see."  
  
"No, you don't. Riley, you don't understand what this is like for me. I went for almost all of my high school life without a... a...” What was that word? she wondered, scanning the paper frantically, "paternal figure in my life. I mean, you have your parents. You talk to them, and they talk back. I've never had that with my dad. For the last three years, he's found these lame excuses not to see me. Now, he's offered to let me stay here if I transfer, and I don't want to lose another chance."  
  
Lilah's a genius, Buffy concluded as she finished reading the lines.  
  
"That just... it didn't sound like you talking," he told her, "it's like some pod person has taken over your body," He had meant it to be an innocent joke, but seemed to have remembered the famous "Faith" incident a millisecond after he'd said it.  
  
"No. It's me." she replied sharply.  
  
"Buffy, is everything okay with this Angel guy?" Even over the phone, the discomfort in his voice was almost palpable. Buffy exhaled sharply into the mouthpiece.  
  
"I think so. I haven't seen him in a few days, and Faith is behind bars right now."  
  
"Then what have you been doing?" he asked.  
  
"Spending time with my dad. Shopping. Taking a break." She put the phone to the other ear and propped her feet up and stretched out on her bed, "Why? Did you think we became involved again? We didn't."  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get all jealous on you. It's just... Xander told me some stuff." Buffy sat up straight.  
  
"He what?"  
  
"....about you and Angel." Buffy put a hand to her forehead.  
  
"Is it true?"  
  
"I'm going to kill him," she said softly. She rolled over and stood up, continuing their conversation in pace mode.  
  
"So I guess it's true."  
  
"Nothing has been happening between us this time!" Buffy insisted.  
  
Nothing good, anyway, she added silently. She heard Riley sigh into the phone.  
  
"Okay, if you say nothing happened, I believe you. You just have to understand where I'm coming from."  
  
"I do."  
  
"Good." There was a moment of silence.  
  
"So, where are you going to go?"  
  
We checked out the UCLA campus on Saturday. They're supposed to have a decent law department-"  
  
"Law? Since when did you want to be a lawyer?"  
  
"Um... I don't really know. It just always seemed like a cool job, and the more I'm finding out about it, the more I like." She silently noted that this was the only valid piece of information she had thrown Riley, "I want to go into criminal law, and this seems like the best place to do that. It'll be easier for me if I go ahead and transfer this year rather than right when I'm about to start pursuing my major."  
  
"So we're breaking up?"  
  
"I think so. The long distance thing is kind of..."  
  
"Difficult?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I'll miss you."  
  
Buffy stopped pacing, suddenly feeling a little stunned.  
  
"I'll miss you, too."  
  
"I'd better go."  
  
"Okay." She didn't hang up.  
  
"Bye," said Buffy.  
  
"Bye." She still kept the phone to her head, waiting for the click. It never came.  
  
"You still there?" she asked.  
  
"Yeah. Listen, Buffy, it hurts ... but I know you've gotta find out what you want, and go for it. I mean, UC Sunnydale has law courses too, but if you could get accepted into UCLA... wow. If defending the innocent in a court of law is what you want to do, I want you to have that. It would mean every bit as much as slaying a demon or a vampire."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"And we'll stay in touch, right?" he asked.  
  
"Goodbye, Riley."  
  
"Yeah. Goodbye, Buffy."  
  
There was a disembodied click, then a dial tone. Buffy pushed the "talk" button on her cordless phone and gently sent it back on the cradle. For some reason, she felt compelled to look around her room. She had arrived so quickly and with so much on her mind that she hadn't really taken the time to look at the new decorations in her father's apartment.  
  
Most of her stuff was still in boxes. What was out was her white dressing table with the mirror. If memory served, the secret drawer a friend had installed during their freshman year was still intact. She looked at her matching white bedspread with the perfect lacey, girly pillows. She had left that bed behind when she moved to Sunnydale. In L.A., she had become accustomed to lying in that same bed and listening to her parents argue on the floor above her head. She ran her fingers along the lacy edges.  
  
"So many old memories," she murmured. Her eyes drifted back to the phone by her bed. "so many new memories." she added. She switched off the floor lamp. She preferred to ponder her strange emotions in the dark.  
  
Wolfram and Hart had gone under the same name for more than 100 years, and this was a mystery that few of those outside the firm had dared to question. The same senior partners directed business, signing forged documents or official lies in the same handwriting.  
  
When he had gotten his first job in the firm, Lindsey had made the mistake of referring to the senior partners "The Great and Powerful Oz" in the middle of an informal meeting with Brett, Lee and Lilah.  
  
He could still remember their reactions. Lilah's coffee cup seemed to freeze at her reddened lips. Her eyes had grown wider and held a shocked quality he had never seen her duplicate. He would never forget Lee's statement, however. Lee had glared at him with the fury of a man whose son had just been called a horrible name by the other kids on the playground. After what seemed like five minutes, Brett finally coughed uncomfortably, and the meeting proceeded as though nothing had happened.  
  
What he had learned from this experience was that Mr. Wolfram and Mr. Hart, who or whatever they were, were not fodder for jokes. It wasn't until he learned about the interpreters that he fully understood the blasphemy he had committed that day.  
  
"Interpreters" were chosen on the basis of who was most expendable. They were the senior partners' only way of moving around, thinking, or doing pretty much of anything. Once an interpreter was chosen, he would be taken to the top story offices. After that final walk up the stairs or ride in the suffocating elevator, that person never came back. His body did, but his coworkers noticed a vast difference.  
  
For one thing, the chosen interpreter would start to hold the top floor offices, run all the meetings, and suddenly show a great expertise in all demon languages and in the black arts. The eyes that blazed and flamed red fire on occasion weren't exactly inconspicuous, either.  
  
From what Lindsey gathered, people died once they became interpreters. They were banished from their own bodies so that a new demon presence could use it. In a safe environment safe for jokes, the lawyers quietly referred to their brown nosing interns as their "interpreters." Lindsey could no longer see the humor in it when he was standing four feet in front of one.  
  
"You should have spoken to us from the very beginning," Wolfram said. At the moment, Wolfram looked like a tall man with blue eyes that pierced his skull. He was in a black suit with perfectly parted gray hair and shoes that seemed to reflect all frequencies of light. The young man facing him tried not to sweat. There was a silent fear within Lindsey every time he spoke to the senior partners. He didn't want either Wolfram or Hart to leave their offices looking 40 years younger or with shaggy brown hair.  
  
"I know, and I apologize for that, sir," said Lindsey, "I knew that your time was valuable, and I thought..."  
  
"I don't want to hear your excuses," Wolfram said evenly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a pill box. He placed it on his desk.  
  
"Is that what I think it is?" Lindsey asked. Wolfram opened it to pull out a long, gray "cigarette" that was squeaking and writing for its life. He touched the flame from an ignited lighter to it. There was an otherworldly shriek, and the only silence. The putrid smell of burning Harpara creature filled the room.  
  
"Would you like one?" Wolfram asked politely. The Harpara had stiffened into a stick like thing, and was slowly turning white. Lindsey tried to hide his disgust as he looked at the things writhing in the box.  
  
"I'm trying to quit," he replied. Wolfram replaced the lid.  
  
"Good choice, these Hapara cigarettes are addictive. Sit down, Macdonald." Lindsey took a seat on the overstuffed couch next to the desk.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"I understand the situation quite well, but it seems like you're only repeating the same mistake. You have to learn that, Macdonald," he dusted the ashes off of his cigarette, "never involve personal vendettas. Like city fires, they inevitably burn out. When that happens, you have nothing in your favor but twenty five square feet of ashes."  
  
Lindsey resisted the urge to ask him what his point was, and said,  
  
"That's not what our relationship with this girl involves..."  
  
"I know what *your* relationship involves," said Wolfram.  
  
"Sir, I think she has a future with us," he continued, "she's a pretty girl, she can fight, and she'd invariably have any jury in any court of law on her side."  
  
"Is she smart?"  
  
"1350 on her SATs and a 3.5 GPA," he recited. Wolfram gave him a long, withering stare.  
  
"That's not what I meant."  
  
'She's resourceful," Lindsey clarified.  
  
"How good a fighter?"  
  
"Vampire slayer." Wolfram made a "hmmm" sound from deep within his throat,  
  
"Yes, sir. She's what this firm needs. She's already about to make the right choice."  
  
"We want to meet her."  
  
"That sounds wise, sir." Wolfram turned his chair to the side.  
  
"Lindsey, she might be the solution to our problems, but if she isn't..." He mashed the stub of his cigarette into an ash tray.  
  
"Understood, sir."  
  
"Good. This meeting is adjourned, Lindsey. Go buy yourself a decent suit, you look like you've been wearing the same thing for the last three weeks."  
  
In the early evening, Buffy met Lilah and Lindsey at the restaurant. They were accompanied by two men she had not met. The first was their associate, Lee Mercer. He had declined to shake hands, and seemed to have difficulty moving. Buffy apologized briefly for the condition Faith had inflicted upon him. He accepted it graciously, trying to nod at her in his neck brace.  
  
The other was one of the partners, Johnathan Wolfram, a thin, wiry man about 50 and some odd years old. When Buffy shook his hand across the table, she felt like she was shaking hands with a creature made entirely out of paper mache. She was half afraid that he might disintegrate if she made any sudden movements. His skin was a dark color, almost completely tan. The texture was rough, and the blue veins in his hands protruded when he moved his fingers. His eyes were the only thing she found overly disturbing; they were the same light blue color as Lindsey's, set against veinless whites. He had the clear-eyed look that came from never wearing contacts, and didn't seem to miss a single detail. He barely spoke, but she knew he absorbed all that happened.  
  
"So everything went smoothly?" Lilah asked. Buffy twirled her blue noodles in the appetizer around her chopsticks. She hadn't asked what she was eating, and honestly didn't want to know.  
  
"Yeah. My boyfriend took it kind of hard, but he accepted the explanation. It's not exactly a lie. I really do want to spend some more time with my dad after I kill Angel."  
  
Her throat had not wanted to open up in order to allow her to say his name. She shrugged, and made every effort to put her cool demeanor back in place. She had sent him to Hell once; surely she could handle thrusting a quick, impersonal stake into his unbeating heart.  
  
"Are you doing anything on Thursday?" Lilah asked.  
  
"No, I don't have any concrete plans with anyone."  
  
"I'm taking you shopping," said Lilah. Buffy blinked.  
  
"Why?" Lilah motioned to Buffy's creamy pink skirt and matching jacket.  
  
"Those clothes aren't right for waging the sort of battle we fight every day," she said "You wouldn't be taken seriously among those of our profession. They are lovely, and would be perfect for say, teaching Sunday school, but not for running down the list of reasons why a defendant could not have possibly been present at the scene of the crime."  
  
Buffy shrugged a little, trying to swallow her fashion pride.  
  
"Yeah, I don't really have much in the way of... you know, business suits." She immediately wished she hadn't said that. She felt like a high school kid again, sitting among her parents' accomplished and stylish circle of friends. Thankfully, the woman didn't respond in the typical high school manner.  
  
"We'll have to fix that, won't we?" was the last she said on the matter.  
  
"Shopping sounds fun." For the first time that day, Buffy smiled.  
  
****  
  
Cordelia found her boss sitting on the couch in what they called the "family room."  
  
"Hi." she greeted him.  
  
"You‘re here early,"  
  
She couldn't tell if he was happy or disappointed to see her., "So… are you okay?"  
  
"I will be," he assured her.  
  
"That's good."  
  
She waited for him to say something. This was a mistake she commonly made where Angel was involved, and it resulted in frequent periods of uncomfortable silence.  
  
"Wesley told me what happened."  
  
"Buffy came here, she wanted revenge on Faith, she was mad at me, I yelled at her. End of story."  
  
She sat down on the table in front of him.  
  
"I've known Buffy for 3 years. You, I just started to spend time with this year, but you did drift in and out of room I was in often enough for me to know that you're not telling me the whole story. So there was a fight? Let's think, which of you would be the most likely to act like a four year old?"  
  
"Cordelia..." he grumbled.  
  
"What?" she spread her hands apart, "Someone needs to tell you this. You're ex girlfriend is acting like... well, like the typical ex girlfriend with superhuman strength."  
  
"Can't ever have too many of those." Cordelia let out a frustrated sigh.  
  
"Just tell me you don't think she was a brat."  
  
"She acted... I can understand..."  
  
"Angel," she chided him.  
  
"She's just a child, Cordy." She grunted in irritation.  
  
"Angel, she's a child who's been slaying undead creatures for most of her childhood. If she's old enough to date someone ten times her age..."  
  
"That's the thing, she wasn't." he admitted. He made the motion of sighing, even though no breath escaped, "You don't need to worry about it, Cordy. We're out of each others lives now, and it's better that way. It'll be for the best if we never cross paths again."  
  
She nodded.  
  
"I think so too. Wanna hear about my vacation?"  
  
"What did you do?" he asked with an amused edge. She looked at the table as she spoke.  
  
"Oh, it was great. I went to West Hollywood and got a facial. They have this amazing spa where... uh, rich people go." She bit her lip, and promised herself she would never to chide Angel for keeping secrets again.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a clicking sound that echoed all through the interrogation room, and then Faith's eyes were confronted with blazing light from the lamp.  
  
"You'll get used to it in a second," Kate said, "in the meantime, we're going on the record." She pushed the buttons on an ancient tape recorder, creating more noise, "I understand that you've waived your right to have an attorney present," she said calmly, "could you tell me why that is?" Faith shrugged, still looking at the table.  
  
"The tape recorder can't pick that up," said Kate.  
  
"I don't have to tell you that."  
  
"But you do confirm that you have waived that right?"  
  
"Yes," Faith grunted.  
  
"Good. Now we're going on to the questions that actually matter. You'd be wise to answer them. First and foremost, this question has raised my curiosity: You've confessed to something like 20 or 30 murders, less than half of which can be proven. There were others who saw you attempt to shoot a man in a public place with... do I have this right? A crossbow?" Kate's eyebrows knitted together, "Faith, why would you try to shoot an arrow at a man you barely knew?"  
  
"Because it's hard to put a stab a man when he's fifty feet in front of me?" Faith deadpanned. Kate pressed her lips together.  
  
"Why else?" she asked. Faith gave her what she rightly presumed to be an irritating smile.  
  
"That all depends on how you look at it. Maybe I didn't try to shoot him. Maybe he just got in the way of my arrow." Kate stepped around the table and whisked the chair out from under Faith. She hit the concrete floor, "Ow!"  
  
"Why else?" she asked, still holding the chair. Faith sat up and crossed her legs, looking thoughtful.  
  
"Do you need a hint?" Kate asked.  
  
"Oh, I'll give you a hint..." Kate threw the chair against the wall. Faith had to cover her ears to block out the metal clanging.  
  
"How about this? A certain legal establishment hired you to assassinate a vigilante who caused a little trouble for them. They wanted our man out of the way because he was bad for business. They probably promised you a clean record and a house in the suburbs, something like that. Am I close?" Faith stood.  
  
"Not even. I don't need to be paid to kill him. I would've done it anyway."  
  
"Then wasn't it convenient that they found you?" she asked, "interesting twist of fate, wouldn't you say?  
  
"Yes, fate can be a real bitch at times," Faith agreed. She smiled sardonically, "Next question, detective?"  
  
"You still haven't answered the first one. According to your story, you left with a man whose name you have refused to divulge soon after the incident."  
  
“We talked.”  
  
“What did you talk about?” Kate asked her pointedly.  
  
“We talked about how subtle cops are when they‘re on power trips.” Faith quipped, “and I’m not sure what it is you want from me.”  
  
She picked up the chair, unfolded it, and sat down. "I'm paying my debt to society. Wesley told me you'd been trying to help me, and believe me I appreciate it, but I'm not asking for it. I don't want your sympathy, and I'll be nothing but a pile of electrocuted ashes by the time I'm twenty-five, so I don't see what the big deal is." Kate folded her arms.  
  
"I see. So someone convinced you that staying in jail would be the right thing to do. That's the end of the story, isn't it? You sit in your little cell and rot, doing nothing to change yourself, nothing to-"  
  
"Look!" Faith shouted. Even she was surprised by her own voice. "I've done my duty. I've turned myself in and stayed in jail like a good girl. I don't want to get involved with anything else, I'd rather just get over this."  
  
"Can I put that down as a confession?" Kate asked.  
  
"No. I already gave you my confession," said Faith, "you can mark that however you want." She crossed her legs over the side of the chair.  
  
"It's good to hear that you've only sold half your soul," said Kate. The girl didn't make any attempt to hide the fact that she was rolling her eyes.  
  
"You've been talking to Angel, haven't you?"  
  
"So have you. That's why you're here, isn't it?" Faith squirmed a little in her chair.  
  
Above their heads, two police officers and three people who looked like civilians observed.  
  
"Ready for the next sensitivity course?" one uniformed man grumbled. His coworker brushed her light hair out of her eyes.  
  
"I clear my calendar every time she has a suspect," the woman confided, "who are these people?"  
  
"I'm the man she tried to kill," Angel told them. The officers gave him a bewildered look, then went to the coffee machine a few paces away.  
  
Wesley raised his eyebrows at Angel while Cordelia drummed her fingernails on the glass.  
  
"Do you think she's getting through to Faith?" he whispered to Angel.  
  
"I don't know, he replied, "Faith's not used to being talked to like that. She'll either get angry or she'll soften up." Cordelia stopped tapping her nails.  
  
"So basically, Kate's in a locked room, and she's bullying a psycho who happens to have superhuman strength." There was shocked silence from Wesley and Angel.  
  
"Angel... did you tell her?" He shook his head.  
  
"She knows Faith is strong..." his voice sounded more panicked by the minute, "I don't think Faith would hurt anyone now. She wouldn't want one more thing on her conscience."  
  
"You should've warned her," said Cordelia, "if you get a slayer..." Wesley waved his hands downward, in a distinct motion for her to speak more quietly. Cordelia looked around quickly, then said softly,  
  
"Angel, Faith could go all Anthony Perkins on you again, and you wouldn't be able to do anything," she pointed through the window, "If Kate pisses off a slayer, she could be in unbelievable danger! You’ve seen what happens when someone like that gets pushed too far.”  
  
****  
  
Since Buffy's return, she had agreed to help a law firm kill her ex boyfriend, eaten desert demon flesh, broken up with Riley, and resolved to go to law school. After all that, meeting Lilah outside of her house to go to a department store had a comfortingly normal feeling about it. She was half afraid to touch Lilah's shiny black BMW, for fear of tarnishing something so expensive.  
  
"You like it?" Lilah asked, smiling behind her authentic Channel sunglasses. Buffy slid gently into the soft, black leather seat.  
  
"It's awesome. Company car?"  
  
Lilah adjusted her vibrant red scarf.  
  
"Only the best." Her hair was curled, and hung loose over her face. The rest of her outfit was solid black, right down to her Dior pumps. Looking at Lilah, she felt so out of place. Lilah seemed to catch Buffy looking at her outfit admiringly as she turned the key, and gave her a reassuring smile. It was as if she was saying, "Don't worry. We can fix that." The slayer found herself smiling back.  
  
When they reached the mall, Buffy felt a sense of release within her stomach. It hadn't really hit her until then that she was away from Sunnydale. Nothing else in the city of angels felt like home.  
  
"There's a shoe store right-" Buffy pointed out.  
  
"We're not going there," Lilah reprimanded her, "we're spending today in Nemin Marcus."  
  
"Get out of here," said Buffy, hardly able to restrain an ecstatic grin. Lilah placed her glasses in her breast pocket.  
  
"A company credit card is a beautiful thing," she replied, patting her pocket book.  
  
****  
  
She paused at the junior department, but then rushed to catch up when she realized that Lilah hadn't stopped.  
  
Lilah passed the sale rack without so much as a considerate glance. The two of them flipped between suits, pushing back coat hangers as they went.  
  
"Black," said Lilah, "wear black suits whenever possible," she took a long look at Buffy, "and you'll need shoulder pads." Lilah selected a dark jacket with matching slacks. The shoulders looked as high as Buffy's ears.  
  
"Yeah, you never know when a verdict could be made based on an impromptu football game," Buffy agreed. Lilah grinned, then quickly turned serious.  
  
"Lawyers- especially women, need to look intimidating. So do our interns and assassins. Dark colors make you feel powerful." She flipped through another series of black, mauve, and gray suits. "Curvy shapes are good; straight lines are too professional. Don’t expose any cleavage or unnecessary skin, but look sensual. Our sexuality is just one more way that we claim power over others. We make the men desire us and the women feel intimidated by us. We let everyone know that we are unreachable. Size two, right?" Buffy nodded, and found herself holding an armload of clothes while trying to digest Lilah‘s speech. "Try these on."  
  
She obediently made her way into the first stall of the dressing room, relieved to be able to set the clothes down on the wicker chair that stood by the door. Buffy quickly peeled off her purple tank top and dropped her jeans on the floor in a rumpled heap. Lilah waited right outside her metal enclosure. Buffy selected her favorite ensemble from the selection.  
  
"What do you think?" she asked, opening the door.  
  
The lawyer pressed her lips together, inspecting the outfit. The clothes suited Buffy, but there was something left to be done. She pulled Buffy's flattened curls out of her collar.  
  
"Keep the outfit for now. Let me see the next one."  
  
Each time she opened the door, Lilah had a similar response. The girl had the strangest feeling that she had failed Lilah each time she shook her head. When Buffy modeled the second to last suit, her eyes lit up.  
  
"I know what's missing." To her astonishment, Lilah seized her hair and gently curled it around her small hands. She held it at Buffy's jaw.  
  
"Are you saying you want..." Lilah nodded.  
  
****  
  
Apparently, waltzing into one of Beverly Hills' trendiest salons unannounced was another perk Wolfram and Hart's employees received. Less than five minutes after locking their Nemin Marcus bags in Lilah's car, Buffy was sitting in one of the back rooms with a black smock over her chest. A woman with a name tag that read "Leigh" combed Buffy's flattened curls.  
  
"Are you sure this is going to look okay?"  
  
"This is a good salon," Lilah said happily.  
  
"Dark brown is a nice color for you," Leigh agreed, "I'm going to shampoo and trim it first."  
  
The stylist tapped her comb on the side of the sink behind Buffy, then turned the faucet. As Buffy's hair was immersed in the warm water, she closed her eyes. She felt herself finally relaxing as the woman scrubbed her scalp with shampoo.  
  
Leigh carefully lifted Buffy's head from the sink and gently ran a comb through her long hair. When it was smoothed to her satisfaction, Leigh began to cut the girl's hair. All Buffy heard was the gentle snipping of metallic scissors. Her two years growth of hair gradually fell to the floor. When she looked up, the stylist was wearing plastic gloves and holding what looked like a toothpaste tube.  
  
"It's going to take about twenty minutes for the dye to set," Leigh told her.  
  
The last time Buffy had been sitting in a chair with dye soaking into her roots, she had been aiming for the exact opposite effect. She was thirteen years old when she colored her hair "honey blonde." At first, Buffy had hated the look and furiously wished her natural brown tresses back. After about a week, her light hair had become so much a part of her. She couldn't stand the thought of letting it grow out.  
  
Buffy breathed through her mouth as Leigh painted her eyebrows with the same dark liquid. She did not want to inhale the sharp, clinical odor of hair dye. After waiting for what seemed like an hour, Leigh washed her hair clean of the dye and gently squeezed it with a towel.  
  
When Buffy's chair was turned around so that she could look in the mirror, another person's reflection greeted her. It took a split second for it to register that this brunette with the wet hair was herself. Leigh turned the hairdryer on and blasted Buffy's scalp with heat. Once it dried, her chestnut brown hair had a nice, smooth texture. The longest layers barely touched the tops of her shoulders.  
  
****  
  
Buffy brushed her hair over her shoulder as she sipped a Starbucks iced cappuccino. On a summer day in California, cold, sweet coffee was a welcome treat.  
  
"You're still staying with your father?" Lilah asked. Buffy nodded with the straw between her lips.  
  
"Somehow, I still manage never to see him," she replied. I've been in town for almost a week now, and he's been at home for one day. I mean, I've been busy, but you'd think he'd make the effort," she said.  
  
"Tell me about it," said Lilah, "I had two parents like that. They didn't get divorced, but they saw me and each other enough to have been living in different countries. It made high school impossible." She stirred the crushed ice at the bottom of her plastic cup.  
  
"High school was interesting," said Buffy, "I saved the world twice... no, three times, and I still managed to almost barely pass my classes."  
  
"That's quite an accomplishment."  
  
"Thanks," said Buffy, I'll bet you were one of those smart people." she guessed.  
  
"I wasn't smart," said Lilah, "not about things that mattered, anyway. I did learn that I'd have to use whatever means I could to get what I wanted."  
  
"How so?" Buffy asked.  
  
"My parents were pretty wealthy, but never at home. I had to learn how to get myself up, dress myself.."  
  
"All the things most people don't learn until after they're thirty?"  
  
"Precisely," said Lilah, "and I didn't have a date in high school. I didn't go to either of my proms."  
  
"You're kidding me." Lilah took the top off of her cup.  
  
"No. I was always working. I knew I had to have the Stanford acceptance letter, because I sure wasn't able to depend on anyone else to get me through."  
  
"You went to Stanford?"  
  
"Salutatorian of my class," Lilah said proudly, "and I did everything I could to get it. I didn't want to end up depending on my parents or a husband for money."  
  
"So it was money that made you want to be a lawyer?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Pretty much," Lilah agreed, "I've never been without money, and I'm going to do whatever I can to keep it that way. It's not that I don't have my scruples. They just have to be disposed of in certain situations. Lindsey is the same way."  
  
"Lilah, can I ask you something personal?" Buffy inquired.  
  
"More personal? All right." she agreed.  
  
"Did you ever... I mean, were you and Lindsey ever involved?" To her surprise, Lilah started to laugh.  
  
"I wouldn't say we were involved. We took business trips together."  
  
"So it was one of those 'meaningless affairs?'" Buffy asked hopefully. Lilah nodded.  
  
"It was the most meaningful meaningless affair of our lives, but it's over. Lindsey and I were... something I can't really explain."  
  
"No, I think you just did." Buffy replied, somewhat glumly. Lilah stirred her latte wordlessly, “I guess that’s what you could say I had with Riley,” she concluded, “It was meaningful and meaningless. I loved him, and… I didn’t,” she confessed. Lilah smiled.  
  
“I know exactly what you mean.”  
  
“I had this really weird dream…” Buffy reddened, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Sometimes, I have dreams where I’m lying next to Riley. I look across the room at the window, where the sun is rising, and the rays come in through the window. They make the whole room light. Then, as I’m looking at Riley, I see him turn into Angel. Angel can’t hide anywhere from the sunlight, and I’m just frozen there. I watch him disintegrate into ashes.” Lilah listened with a furrowed brow, and then her eyes widened.  
  
“Buffy…” she said in a more sympathetic and honest tone than the girl had ever heard Lilah utter, “if you aren’t ready for this particular assignment, I’ll find someone else. It won’t be easy, but Angel is nothing more than a problem with an easy solution. My interest in you is much more long term than a simple assassination.”  
  
Buffy looked startled when Lilah referred to her future career at Wolfram and Hart as “my interest.” It had dawned on her then that the other lawyers, and even the partners might not look at her future with such high aspirations as Lilah and Lindsey had demonstrated. As a lawyer, she would be closed off from her instincts to fight and to hunt. As an assassin, she would be disposable after Angel had been… gone.  
  
“I’m ready to do this, Lilah,” she assured her mentor, “I really am.”  
  
As both a slayer and an employee at Wolfram and Hart, she would be able to do anything. Lilah's smile was understanding, and she reached into her purse.  
  
“In the meantime,” she began, “I have something that will help you with those nightmares.” She procured an unlabelled pill container.  
  
“What are they?” Buffy asked.  
  
“They’re the reason that I can get to sleep at night,” Lilah said, “with what you’re going through right now, you probably need them more than I do.” Buffy touched the plastic surface of the bottle and glanced at its contents. They appeared to be purely white and round, but their shape and color were distorted by the garish hue of the container. The child proof lid untwisted easily in her palm.


	5. Chapter 5

She caught sight of herself in Wolfram and Hart's glass doors, and paused with her fingers still wrapped around the handle. Buffy was practically gasping for breath in her nervousness.  
  
"I can't do this," she murmured. The girl who faced her didn't look real. She didn't feel like she was in her own skin anymore. Buffy firmly ordered herself not to cry; she wasn't going to arrive at the meeting with twenty dollar mascara running down her face. She squared her shoulders, and stepped into the lobby.  
  
Lindsey noticed that there were dark circles beneath Lilah’s eyes, and saw that her usually immaculate makeup was smeared. She hadn’t even said hello to him that morning, but had made a mad dash for the coffee pot and filled her cup to the brim.  
  
“Should we just put a straw in the pot for her?” Lee had asked. Lilah ignored him and rubbed the corner of her eye.  
  
“Lilah?” he asked, “You okay?” She grunted in response as the door opened.  
  
He nearly dropped his coffee cup when he saw Buffy walk into their conference room. From her the top of her dark brown hair to her black high heels, he could recognize Lilah's handiwork. Any trace of naivety that he'd detected at their first meeting was gone. Tiny sapphires sparkled at her earlobes. She was wearing the same pearl necklace that had adorned her throat when she first entered Wolfram and Hart. It seemed to take a different tone when worn on top of her present outfit; the pearls no longer seemed to be a symbol of youth and purity, but of wealth and ambition.  
  
Buffy met Lindsey's eyes and nodded. Her chin went up and down in a fluid and coldly professional gesture. She took a seat in the chair closest to the door. Buffy smoothed a forelock behind her ear, and Lindsey observed a small, almost imperceptible dye stain on her temple. He wondered whether or not Lilah had seen it; she was the most likely to notice the small imperfections. Buffy was looking at her and attempting to parrot the woman’s straight posture and serious expression. Her impossibly light eyes met his stare. For a second, her lips parted in something akin to surprise; the she pressed them together, and smiled at him. Her eyes held his for a minute, and he was trapped. He felt that he fully comprehended a vague shadow of the girl; she was all freshly lost innocence and underestimated power. She overwhelmed him. Her lips parted slightly as she looked over the agenda.  
  
“Don’t sit there with your mouth open,” Lilah corrected Buffy. The girl immediately pressed her lips together.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t apologize,“ her tone was exhausted, “Don’t make your eyes saucer huge, either. You look like you’re three years old.”  
  
“Lilah, leave her alone!” Lindsey snapped.. Buffy smiled at him gratefully. Lilah’s eyes narrowed, and she started to say something. Before she could lecture him, Lee dropped a manila folder on the table.  
  
“I hate to interrupt lack-of-charm school, but we do have a meeting,”  
  
“Right,” Buffy agreed, “We have to talk about… you know, business and stuff. Lilah, I’ll try to be more lawyer-y.” Lilah put a hand to her brow and shook her head, “Right now, I need to know what we have in terms of resources… what can I use?”  
  
“We can get you anything you need,” said Lilah, “charms, weapons…”  
  
“I’m using my crossbow.” Buffy responded.  
  
“Too conspicuous,” Lee pointed out, “you’d never get it past security.”  
  
“Isn’t there a way around that?”  
  
“There’s always the warlocks,” Lindsey suggested.  
  
“That would take too long!“ said Lee, “There’s so much paperwork you have to go through to even get an appointment with them. They made Lilah wait three months to get a wrinkle removed.”  
  
“It was a scar!” Lilah snapped, “One of my clients accidentally clawed me in the face when he leaned forward. It wasn’t a wrinkle.” Lindsey held the coffee cup to his face in order to hide his amusement. Buffy was looking down at the table and attempting to mask a smile.  
  
“The point is,” Lee continued, “we have to get her in the courtroom, and back out without anyone seeing her.”  
  
“In the courtroom…” Buffy murmured, “Maybe I don’t have to go in there.”  
  
“What?” Lilah and Lee asked in unison.  
  
“Well, I saw this spell that my friend, Willow told me about a while ago; when she first got into practicing witchcraft, she found this really advanced spell that would let you see through walls. She never tried it, and it’s still way too far out of her league, but if there was a way…”  
  
“Our staff consists of professional, skilled practitioners, not little girls playing at witchcraft. If such a spell exists, they would know about it,” Lee snapped, Buffy raised her eyebrows.  
  
“Willow’s not playing! You don’t even know her.”  
  
“Hmm,” Lilah said sardonically, “Why don’t you call this Willow? I’m sure if she knew you were working for us, she’d be thrilled to help you.”  
  
“Willow would never…!” Buffy stammered, and the realized she could not defend Willow‘s integrity in a situation where she had sacrificed her own. Her mouth was agape, and her eyes on the table. Lilah arched a perfectly trimmed eyebrow.  
  
“You did think about the fact that you weren’t going to be fighting alongside your childhood playmates, didn’t you?” Since her phone call to Riley, she had not thought about her friends in Sunnydale. Lilah was right; Xander, Willow, Giles, Anya, Riley, and even Spike were a part of her past history. They could have no place in her new life or her career.  
  
She wanted out. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth to say the words.  
  
I don’t want to do this. I don’t. It’s wrong. I can’t have this. Something inside hesitated, and the images of Angel’s face came back. She needed him dead if she was going to move on, needed to wipe that visage from her life and her memory. We all want Angel dead. They can give me what I need to make it happen. The pieces of her mind fell back into place, and her jaw line tightened.  
  
“Lee, you should let me speak with them myself. I’m working on this project, and you are helping me. If I have to go through you for every request, that’s going to slow things down a lot. Tell me when I can set up an appointment with these warlocks you’re talking about.”  
  
“Who do you think you-” Lee exploded.  
  
Lindsey cut him off.  
  
“If you go down the hall and talk to the secretary in the room on your left, he can arrange an appointment.” She coolly nodded her thanks at him, and arose from her chair.  
  
“This has been a very productive meeting. Thank you all for your help.” There was silence as her receding footsteps sounded down the carpeted hallway. Lee rolled his eyes, and Lilah grinned at her longtime rival.  
  
“She reminds me a lot of myself when I was young and innocent.”  
  
“Lilah..." Lee began, "First of all, you were never innocent. Secondly, you’ve created a monster. No, you’ve done worse; you’ve created mini-you. Macdonald and I aren‘t going to…Lindsey?”  
  
Lindsey finally lifted his gaze from the open door.  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“Never mind.” Lee said grumpily.  
  
Lilah took a long, imaginary sip from the coffee cup that had been empty for nearly fifteen minutes.  
  
  
  
Lindsey had never asked Lilah what personal demons she was exorcising on the stair master. She spent enough time on it to have ventured to the top of every skyscraper in the world. She hadn’t heard him come in over the whir of the machines, and was gripping the handle so tightly that he could see the definition of the bones in her knuckles. Her mouth was pressed into a straight line. Lilah’s entire complexion was flushed red, except for the white tips of her flared nostrils. Her leotard was, of course, black. In all the time they had worked together, he had never seen Lilah wear any other color other than black or gray. Even her lingerie was black lace.  
  
He dropped his brief case on the ground to get her attention. Lilah tilted her head to the side.  
  
“Hello.” Her pace slowed, but she did not stop the redundant up and down movement.  
  
“We’ve got a court date for Faith,” he began. The machine wound down to an anti-climactic halt.  
  
“That was quick,” she remarked, “I’ll call Buffy.” She stepped off of the machine, and made a show of wiping the sweat from her neck with her towel.  
  
“No need. We’re having dinner in a couple hours.”  
  
“We are?”  
  
“Oh, no. I’m taking Buffy out,“ Lilah’s lips parted slightly.  
  
“You and Buffy?”  
  
“See you tomorrow?”  
  
“Tomorrow.”  
  
She picked up her bag and walked to the locker rooms without another word.  
  
  
  
  
  
Buffy absently stirred a spoon in her salad. There had been several moments of silence.  
  
“So..” Lindsey began.  
  
“I’m fine,” she insisted, “just having a headache, that‘s all.” The restaurant was dim, and lit by candles on the table. The flames cast shifting shadows on both of their faces.  
  
“I was just going to ask if you were ready to order drinks,” he told her.  
  
“You weren’t going to ask me what was wrong?”  
  
“You just said-”  
  
“I want you to ask!” she argued. Lindsey folded his menu back up.  
  
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,”  
  
“What do you mean?” she asked, “I think it’s a good idea to… um, order.”  
  
“I meant us.” he explained.  
  
“There’s an us?” Her defenses were down, and her eyes had widened in the way that Lilah had criticized a day earlier.  
  
“I don’t know,” he paused, “are you having trouble because of Ang-”  
  
“God, no!” she insisted a little more loudly than she had intended. She cringed, and lowered her voice, “I’m not worried. All I have to do is walk in there, stake Angel, and then I bury my ex boyfriend under the rug, literally and metaphysically.”  
  
“Metaphorically,” he corrected her.  
  
“That too.”  
  
  
  
She hadn’t made up her mind as to whether it was the pleasure of Lindsey’s company of the extreme unwillingness to be alone that made her ask the driver to take them to a nightclub on the other side of town. Lindsey seemed to speak with a deeper southern accent. Buffy had heard him slip into his Texan dialect on occasion, but he was no longer attempting to restrain the stress he put on certain syllables of his words. His voice was easy and smooth.  
  
Buffy and Lindsey were in the back of the limo exploring the contents of the mini bar. She cackled as he tried to throw back a shot, and missed his mouth by a quarter inch. Vodka spilled down his face and the front of his Hugo Boss button up shirt.  
  
“You are so far gone,” she chided him. Lindsey raised an eyebrow at her over the glass.  
  
“What about you?” Buffy smirked, and shook her head, “It’s one of the perks of being a slayer. I sober up a lot faster than you,” she affected a bad southern accent, “Ah can hold my liquor!” the she grinned, “Except for this one time… but that was enchanted beer. It turned me into a Neander… nean…neeee…” she stumbled over the word, “Okay, you win,” she admitted, watching Lindsey pour himself another shot. Lightly grazing his thigh with hers, she took the glass from him and teasingly held it to his mouth. He took the rim between his lips, and drank.  
  
The tie that had been firmly knotted was now loosened, and hanging carelessly around his neck with the top button of his shirt undone. Buffy watched the muscles around his throat contract as he drank, and the way his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed another mouthful. The veins in his throat ran parallel to one another, in perfect and even symmetry. She noticed that she was focusing very heavily on his neck. Lindsey started to swallow the last mouthful of vodka. Something flashed across the forefront of her mind.  
  
Angelus.  
  
Predator and prey were all that existed, and Buffy was thrust headlong into the consuming darkness she had been building inside her own mind. Buffy leaned forward and gently slammed her teeth on his jugular. Lindsey cried out, and choked on his drink. The feeling of her tiny, sharp teeth in his throat made drop his glass. He pushed her away, his hands clutching her deceptively small shoulders.  
  
“Oh God…” she started, “Lindsey! I’m so sorry!” She panicked, “I don’t know why I… I’m really sorry.”  
  
He looked wordlessly at her frightened eyes. If he didn’t know better, he would say she was on the verge of tears. She was just a girl. She was more than a girl. She was dangerous. He had no business with her. With this realization at the forefront of his mind, he kissed her and the world went back into motion.  
  
When Buffy went home that night, she slept with the dress she had been wearing next to her bed. In her dreams, everything smelled like vodka and musk and the faint hint of blood. The odor of blood grew stronger. When she awoke, a migraine throbbed in her forehead. The pills that Lilah had given her were buried under her other possessions in the top drawer of her dresser. She stumbled in the darkness to her dresser and dug the bottle out of the top drawer. She gulped one capsule unceremoniously before she threw the container back into the drawer.  
  
She could feel the pharmaceutical relief taking over her senses as she returned to the comfort of her bed. She barely managed to drag herself on top of the mattress and collapse on top of her upset sheets. Within seconds, she had fallen into a sterile and dreamless sleep.  
  
Angel and Kate were the only patrons in the diner. It was nearly 3:00 in the morning, and the restaurant had been the only place near the courthouse that was open. Angel was more alert than Kate was. He could detect her exhaustion from the way her eyes drooped periodically during their conversation. Behind her eyes, she had a different kind of energy. She was running on the fuel of nervous apprehension, not sleep.  
  
The tables were decorated with rings from the thousands of coffee cups that had been there in days, months, and years past. Kate was not drinking; she only stirred ice cubes into the brown liquid and watched them melt into the swirling abyss she created. The usual sounds of horns blaring in the distant traffic came in through the windows. She finally raised her blue eyes to meet his.  
  
“Look, this doesn’t mean I want to be buddies again,” she said gently, “but I really do appreciate you being here. You usually make me uncomfortable, but I think I’ll feel better knowing that you’re in the room when Faith gives her testimony.”  
  
“They should put that on a Hallmark card,” Angel quipped. She smiled.  
  
“The vampire has a sense of humor,” she teased.  
  
“The detective makes an observation.”  
  
Their interactions were becoming more casual, and more like the conversations they had when they first met. They talked idly about work, just as they had before she had known he was a vampire. He had missed those conversations with her. He wasn’t sure how he had planned to keep the charade up, but it was refreshing to have one friend who didn’t know about his past. When she had found the truth about him, he had felt a sense of emptiness; he had lost the only interaction he could call “normal.” Her demeanor turned serious.  
  
“We’re keeping the hearing as low profile as possible. I don’t want any media people in the courtroom. It’s just going to be us, the judge, and the jury. Faith’s lawyer tells me that if we’re lucky, she’ll be let off on the insanity defense. Worst case scenario… well, you get the idea.”  
  
He nodded grimly.  
  
“Oh, and by the way…” Kate began with a slight edge to her words, “there’s something I need you to tell me. This stays just between us, but it’s been bothering me since the interrogation.”  
  
“Sure,” he responded, uncertain of what to expect. Kate arched an eyebrow at him.  
  
“Angel, what is a vampire slayer?” He averted his eyes as he tried to think of the best way to answer her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Of course she wasn't speaking to him. Angel idly wondered what he had been expected. There was no easy way to answer her question. Every new thing she learned only affirmed the reality of her world, and of what Angel himself was. She hadn't even hinted at animosity when he told her what a slayer was. Kate had only stared into her coffee cup as though trying to peer through the opaque liquid to the mug's porcelain base. She made herself vulnerable, then impenetrable in the space of a few seconds.  
  
They had remained silent as they crossed the street. The dark clouds in the sky and the black umbrella Angel held over his head shielded him from the dangerous sunlight. Kate had coldly shaken her head when he'd offered to share his umbrella.  
  
  
  
  
  
The sound of rain was oddly comforting, even if she could only see it outside the tiny window of her cell. Rain was unpredictable. It could be gentle and refreshing, or harsh and stormy. The shower that raged outside Faith's window was somewhere in between the two extremes. In spite of the fluorescent lights, it gave the room a more homely atmosphere. She was most comfortable in the dark.  
  
While she awaited her hearing, Faith sat on her cot and half heartedly read one of the books her watcher had left. It eventually became too much effort to digest all the words on the page, so she flipped to the inside of the front cover. She smiled a little at the sight of Wesley's name written in neat, black ink. The writing had once been clear, but it had been smudged a little over the years. Faith had to smirk when she noticed the small imperfections in his penmanship. As it turned out, Wesley Wyndem Price didn't place the dots directly above his i's, but a several millimeters to the left. As minute as that detail was, she wondered if their relationship in Sunnydale might have been different if she had known that neither he nor his penmanship was perfect. Her attention flew from the book when two nervous looking guards approached her cell. She closed it, and slipped the book under her mattress.  
  
"Oh, my escorts are here," she grinned at their terrified expressions, "relax, boys. I'll be gentle since it's your first time."  
  
  
  
  
  
“Will the defendant please rise.”  
  
It had been at least five years since she had heard those words. Faith tucked her unwashed hair behind her ears, and stood in the front of the courtroom. Rain pelted the roof of the courtroom on the morning of Faith‘s hearing. She could see Angel and Wesley sitting near the front. Faith had not looked at the jury. She wasn’t even concerned about the outcome. She stared at a spot somewhere in the distance, and waited for the first round of questioning to be over.  
  
Faith felt something tingling at the base of her neck, and then started. A deep, primal instinct was telling her that something was not right. The voices of those in the courtroom seemed to soften as her attention was focused on one spot near the doorway. There was an essence in it that she recognized, a predatory force. She knew it too well because Faith had felt it within herself. It had been the very thing she was trying to combat the morning that Lilah paid her a visit in her cell.  
  
“No,” was all she could say. She caught Wesley’s eyes, and mouthed one word: Help. He looked confused. What? He mouthed in response. Motion was exploding all around her. Wesley nudged Angel about a second before Faith doubled over in pain. A red, lotus blossom shape appeared on her orange uniform. It spread across her chest as she inhaled sharply and collapsed.  
  
“That… it came from nowhere. What happened?” Cordelia asked. Angel could already see Kate ushering spectators out of the way. She waved the other officers away from Faith, and gently rolled her over to examine the wound. She whispered something into Faith’s ear, and the girl weakly nodded.  
  
“Keep her still until the paramedics get here,” she calmly ordered the officers, “and give her room to breathe. Another woman screamed as an invisible force knocked down the flag.  
  
“Get down,” Angel ordered. The three of them dropped to the ground and crawled under the bench as something invisible whooshed over their heads, and several officers surrounded Faith.  
  
“Oh my God,“ Cordelia pointed across the aisle, “Lilah’s here. Something’s up.” Angel nodded at them.  
  
“Stay on the ground, but keep moving. Get close to Lilah if you can, find out who she’s here with.” He crawled along the floorboards faster than humanly possible, and re-emerged near Faith. Kate motioned for her coworkers to let him in the circle.  
  
Her face was pale, and her lips bloodless and white.  
  
“Faith?” he whispered, “Faith?”  
  
“It’s…” she panted, “there’s something in my chest, Angel.” He moved his hand over her heart, and felt something solid in his palm. He groped in the air for the other end of the object, and then pulled it gently. Faith winced as the arrow in his hand became visible.  
  
He refused to believe it. It was impossible that what he was thinking could possibly be true. He clenched the arrow in his fist, and dashed towards a familiar, retreating scent.  
  
The heavy raindrops hit his face as soon as he passed the doorway of the building. There was a silhouette in the rain. The raindrops did not fall around a solid, female form.  
  
“You’re back,” he said calmly.  
  
He heard an arrow leave the crossbow, and he easily dodged it.  
  
“We’ve done this before.” His words were as heavy and relentless as the rain; “I know you’re better than that. How long are you invisible, Buffy?” For a few seconds, the silence between them was palpable.  
  
“Do you really think I would tell you?”  
  
He smiled at her savagely.  
  
“This is what you want, Buff? You don‘t know what you‘re getting into.” Another arrow flew from her crossbow, “I’ve never seen you miss twice in a row,” he chastised her. He took a step forward, and slammed his hands on her shoulders. Buffy gasped.  
  
He can’t see me, she reminded herself. It was only her imagination that he was staring right into her eyes and reading her every emotion. She hated herself for letting him do this to her. Her assignment was simple; she was to kill Angel. After everything she had done to prepare herself for this moment, she was about to give in. She forced her voice to be cool and even.  
  
“I want to finish this, Angelus.” she said. Pure, unadulterated anger was coursing through her veins, and she had to use it to her advantage,” I know better than anyone what I’m getting into.” She struck his chin with the butt of her crossbow, and he stumbled backwards. He looked at her silhouette again, and smiled lecherously. He felt the muscles of his face shift, and his fangs extended. As much as he hated to admit it, he had missed this. Buffy had been his favorite opponent.  
  
"You think you can take me? You think you can stop me?" she was screaming. He felt bruising punches and kicks come out of thin air, "I sent you to Hell!" He instinctively ducked a blow that would have connected with his forehead.  
  
"And you brought me back," he said in a tone as gentle as his elongated fangs would allow. He felt more than heard Buffy's sharp intake of breath as her features flickered back into existence. Now he was staring into huge, light eyes framed by damp chocolate strands of hair.  
  
"I like your hair," he said, "who did it? Lilah?"  
  
"How-" she caught herself, before speaking again, and let a wild, unformed flying kick hit him in the solar plexus. She took him by surprise, and he doubled back over. His face melted back into his human features, and he opened his arms.  
  
"You've had several chances to kill me already."  
  
"And you've had several to run away," she accused him, "why didn't you?"  
  
"Did you want me to?"  
  
He was answered with an arrow shot just below his heart. As he fingered the wound in agony, she leaned over him.  
  
"I wanted to be with you," she said, "I wanted to stay with you forever, and when you left, I wanted to forget you. When I couldn't do that, I wanted to kill you. Now that I can't even do that, I'll have to settle for making the rest of your non-life hell; you think you've seen Hell, Angel? This is going to be worse. I can make it worse; you taught me how to do that." With one last bitter kick to his side, she mounted the ladder and disappeared into the surface world. Buffy ran to the building just behind the courthouse. In the rain, with a crossbow at her side, she held one of the pills Lilah had given her several days ago. She could take it, run back to the sewer, and turn her wounded ex boyfriend into a pile of smoke and ashes. She could go on forever taking medicine that would suppress her emotions and enable her to function in Wolfram and Hart's world. She tossed them into the gutter and watched them dissolve in the current.


	6. Chapter 6

"Lilah, I quit." The words sounded thunderously loud in Buffy's own ears. She held the crossbow to her chest. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this. No matter how great things are here, no matter what kind of future I have or whatever... this isn't what I do. I want to stop before I become Faith.”  
  
Outside of the picture windows of her office, it was raining. The cloudy sky made the grey carpet seem even gloomier. Lilah rotated her desk chair to face Buffy.  
  
"Elizabeth Summers," she said carefully, "you will never become Faith. Faith isn't capable of what you are. She was easy to buy off, yes, and physically adept. Still, she wasn't as talented as you are. Believe me; I know talent when I see it." The girl kept her finger on the trigger of the crossbow. "I should have expected this," Lilah continued, "You're weak... you're like him, and like her. You try to put everything in terms of good and bad. You think we're the bad guys. Has it never occurred to you that we're just doing a job? Angel isn't any better than us. He's making a living, just like we are."  
  
"I need out," she said tremulously. The look on Angel's face had told her everything, had let her know how far she'd fallen. At that point, Lilah did something Buffy had never seen her do before; she slammed a slender, well manicured palm onto the desk. Paperweights bounced with the force of her energy.  
  
"Damn it!" she yelled, "You think you can put us through this kind of hell and then just walk away? You signed a contract!" Buffy thought of the contract, of the ridiculousness of the remark. She was fulfilling a responsibility that had been laid out for her at birth, and Lilah was referring to a bit of ink scribbled on a piece of paper. Buffy drew in a sharp breath, and laughed softly.  
  
Lilah looked even more infuriated.  
  
"You signed a contract with Wolfram and Hart!" she enunciated, "Do you have any idea what that means?" Buffy smiled uneasily.  
  
"What are you going to do? Take me to court?" The naivety rang in her voice.  
  
"Take you to court?!?" Lilah looked at her incredulously, and then indulged in disbelieving laughter, "Oh, Buffy... you poor thing." She dabbed at a bit of stray makeup at her temples, "It's a lot more serious than that."  
  
"What are you going to do to me?" Lilah shook her head and grimaced.  
  
"You backstab your ex-boyfriend, and then you double cross the people who are trying to help you get even with him. You would have made a great lawyer; I have to give you that. What a waste." She leaned across the desk and brushed a fingertip across Buffy's chocolate curls, "You even look like me when I was younger. Maybe if I had known then what I know now..." she paused, "But never mind. You want to quit before you become Faith? Buffy, think about the consequences. Think about what you've done so far." With that, the lawyer released her and went back to annotating the typed pages on her desk.  
  
Buffy put the empty pill bottle on her desk, and Lilah heard the plastic click against her mahogany desk. She raised her eyes to meet Buffy’s.  
  
"These help you sleep at night," Buffy mused, "They also make you feel dead inside. I felt it in myself, and it scared me that I could feel that numb about anything. I rely on my emotions for so much; without them, Lilah, I'm..." she paused thoughtfully, "Lilah, I'm you. Don't take these things again. You've gone without them for a few days, don't you feel something? Guilt? Regret? You can get out... can't you?" Lilah fingered the plastic bottle, and Buffy saw an expression akin to pain pass the woman's matte features. She met Buffy's eyes once again.  
  
"Get out," Lilah snapped, "I don't want to see you again. I don't even want to think about you."  
  
*****  
  
Buffy exited the office only to find Lindsey waiting for her on the other side of the door.  
  
"You heard?" she asked.  
  
"I can't take the pills either," he admitted. Buffy looked at her feet.  
  
Do you try to talk me out of leaving?"  
  
"No," Lindsey said, "I tell you to get out of here while you still have a chance. You don't belong here, and I mean that as a compliment."  
  
"So today was strange, huh?" Buffy grimaced.  
  
"For both of us."  
  
She let herself embrace him, which took him by surprise.  
  
"Don't worry, I'm not going to bite you," she promised. She felt him grin against her cheek, "Lin, you could come with me. I know I don't... I mean we aren't... we haven't been a 'we' all that long, but..." Lindsey pulled away from her and gave her a silencing glance.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere. It's too late for me," he said. Buffy's eyes widened.  
  
"It isn't. It's never too late for anyone-"  
  
"Does that include Faith?" he asked. She winced.  
  
"Faith and I are even now, I guess you could say. I'll tell her when I get back."  
  
"Get back?" he stopped her, "You can't just walk out the front doors and expect to leave this building alive. They're going to know that something's up."  
  
"How do I get out of here, then?" she asked him.  
  
"I know a way through the archive room in the basement. We can get there without too much trouble." They ventured into a nearby elevator, and Lindsey pushed the "B" button. As the elevator carried them further into the bowels of Wolfram and Hart, Buffy looked at Lindsey.  
  
"What was Lilah talking about? What are they going to do to me?"  
  
"Remember the restaurant where we ate the first night you were with us?"  
  
"What do you..."  
  
“There are no Quidre desert demons, Buffy."  
  
She looked at him quizzically, and then her face contorted into an expression of pure, unadulterated nausea.  
  
"How can you work here?" she whispered.  
  
More loudly and mechanically, he said, "Once we get to the basement, I'll show you the archives." As his voice reached a certain volume, Buffy noticed a small red light buzz into existence over their heads, apparently recording the sound waves of his voice.  
  
As they stepped out of the elevator into the dark basement, he leaned closer to her and whispered, "It's like skipping through a landmine."  
  
There was no teary goodbye between them, just a handshake as Buffy opened the vault door in the basement. To an outsider, it would have seemed strangely formal for two people who would in all likelihood never see one another again. However, it felt appropriate for the situation. There was nothing else to say. Buffy ran through all the possible ways of saying goodbye to Lindsey in her mind. Somehow, "Thanks for helping me. Have a nice life here in your own personal Hell, and call me if you find someone that I could kill with a clear conscience" didn't seem like a fitting farewell. She traveled through the long, dark tunnel, paying careful attention to the odd shapes illuminated by the little light. The rain was still thunderously loud above her head.  
  
She resurfaced beneath what looked like a manhole cover, and was greeted by a heavy downpour of rain. She carefully levitated herself into a Los Angeles side street. Her crossbow was still under her left arm, and her dark hair was clinging to her scalp like dead seaweed. She took a deep breath, and tried to take in her surroundings before she felt someone grab her legs and drag her forcefully back into the darkness. Buffy tried to kick, and the heel of her boot struck something; she couldn’t see what held her.  
  
Then there were hazy images that barely made an impression on her brain. Something was pulling her away, making room for something else. Her mind was slipping away into the darkness, losing control and feeling of her muscles one at a time. She could faintly hear voices echoing in the sewers and feel sensation of cold, inhuman fingers splayed across her face. The oblivion of death was cold and unwelcome, though just before she slipped away completely, Buffy thought she heard a familiar voice whispering in her ear.  
  
“It’s over.”  
  
****  
  
“So, Buffy left?” Lindsey asked Lilah as nonchalantly as possible. Lilah narrowed her eyes at him as they walked.  
  
“I don’t suppose you would *know* anything about this rumor, would you?” she snapped. Lindsey shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in the pockets of his jacket to keep from fidgeting nervously. They were walking down the street that ran past Wolfram and Hart’s main office; unfortunately, the main office was less than four blocks away from a park. The lawyers had to elbow their way through a crowd of teenagers on rollerblades. When they had made their way through a group of kids, Lilah’s eyes drifted to the upper stories of Wolfram and Hart.  
  
“No, Lindsey, Buffy did not quit.” She felt the corners of her mouth turn up when she saw Lindsey’s face contort. He no longer looked as if he was discussing simple office gossip; Lilah had Buffy in the palm of her hand, and could use the girl to checkmate any move Lindsey made. It was a delicious feeling to watch his cool exterior crumble into sheer, vulnerable terror. “Buffy is still working for Wolfram and Hart… she returned this morning.”  
  
“Then why didn’t I see her?” Lindsey asked. It was all Lilah could do to keep from smiling broadly; she settled for a smirk to let her coworker know that she was the one in control.  
  
“She’s been promoted.”  
  
“Promoted?” Lindsey asked. He milled over the word in his mind for a second, and then seemed to choke on his next sentence. Lilah watched him run to the office building with a satisfied expression on her face.  
  
****  
  
He couldn’t remember having had a shorter elevator ride to the top floor. Lindsey was feeling nauseous over what Lilah had just said, wondering if there was any way that she could possibly- no. Lindsey was used to accepting the facts, but he wouldn’t be able to believe this until he saw it. He rested his forehead against the wall of the elevator and tried to get rid of the twisted feeling in his stomach. The elevator finally emitted an ominous “ding” to let its lone passenger know that it had made its way to the top floor. Lindsey leaned against the wall for support, and then forced himself to walk through the doors and to the only offices that were placed on the top floor. The door labeled Wolfram was closed. The door with Jonathan Hart’s name engraved in gold was slightly ajar. Lindsey carefully inched the door open.  
  
Buffy was sitting at the desk with a pen in her hand and something long and thin between her fingertips that emitted a cloud of sweet smelling smoke. When her eyes met Lindsey’s, he nearly lost his balance. She was silent and unrelenting with her gaze. There was something different about her eyes; he could faintly make out something completely unworldly in them.  
  
“Good afternoon, Mr. McDonald,” she said slowly and evenly, “I usually don’t like impromptu meetings like this, but I have been away from this firm for a very long time.” It seemed to take several seconds before Lindsey could finally croak out the formal salutation.  
  
“Good afternoon, Jonathan Hart.” Buffy gestured for him to take a seat.  
  
“Cigarette?” she offered politely.


	7. Chapter 7

Faith had managed to stay awake in the ambulance with Wesley vigilantly watching over her. When she parted her pale lips, she looked a few years younger. Faith looked nothing like the cocksure slayer who had torn through Sunnydale only a year before.  
  
"Hey," he whispered, not entirely certain what he could say to make her feel better. Faith gave him an amused look through lowered eyelids.  
  
"I don't believe you,"  
  
"Pardon me?"  
  
"I almost killed you a few weeks ago, and what do you do?" she slurred, "You come see me in jail and you bring me a book. How great is that, Wes? You show up in a maximum security prison with your little glasses hanging off the end of your nose, wearing your preppy schoolboy shirts, and you try to teach me Latin. I mean, who *does* things like that, anyway?"  
  
"You shouldn't talk right now, Faith. I want to get you to the hospital alive." At that suggestion, Faith let out a pshaw.  
  
"I am not going into another fucking coma, Wes. Not now that things are finally going so good for me."  
  
"The fact that you consider being at death's door while you're supposed to be at a serial murder trial to be a good thing notwithstanding," Wesley chided her, "We're going to need you to get through this thing alive- however you do that. I don't want you to die, Faith." At that, Faith smiled indulgently.  
  
"You know, I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me." She carefully rotated her neck in the confining stretcher, "I'm telling you, I'm not gonna die. Slayer healing powers, remember?"  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"Keep me talking," she begged, "If I go under again, I don't think I'll ever come back up. I really don't want to back to that place." The way she said "that place" let Wesley know that it was prudent to change the subject.  
  
"Can you list all the irregular conjugations we studied?"  
  
"Irregular conjugation," Faith snickered weakly, "I can list a few of those. Want me to demonstrate?"  
  
"That isn't what the word means, and you know it," Wesley blushed, spoiling the effect.  
  
"And yet, you turn red."  
  
"I could show you the meaning of the word in the dictionary," he insisted, "no, normal people don't need a dictionary."  
  
"Why should any of us be normal after everything that's happened?" He had to admit that she had a point, "I mean, I just got shot by an invisible assassin with an arrow who..." she paused.  
  
"Faith?" he called her name, trying to keep her from slipping back into the recesses of her own mind.  
  
"That was the same way I shot Angel," she told him, "with an arrow through the heart."  
  
"It's just a coincidence," he assured her.  
  
"Help me up!" she ordered as she attempted to push herself into a sitting position. She winced in pain as the muscles in her chest contracted.  
  
"Help you- you're barely able to stay awake!" She somehow managed to groggily lift herself from the stretcher and stand. She stumbled slightly, and Wes caught her elbows. She was left standing mere inches from his face.  
  
"Hey, Wes?" she whispered hoarsely.  
  
"What?!?"  
  
"This," Faith said, kissing him abruptly before pulling away. He stared at her in mute shock.  
  
"Faith, what in the world are you-"  
  
"It's really too bad that I didn't see this earlier," she continued, seeming oblivious to his surprise, "We could have had some fun, you know? I wonder if they would have let me have conjugal visits," Wesley had a sneaking suspicion that she had only said it for shock value, and he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of looking embarrassed. The wisecracks seemed to revitalize her, "It's too bad that I've got to go now. I'll probably get killed, but at least it'll be one thing I did right."  
  
"You've got to go? How are you... You are not about to jump out of a moving ambulance! You'll be killed," he insisted. She had already managed to force the door open, "Faith, what do you need? I can do whatever it is you're about to run off to-"  
  
"I wish that you could be my watcher again, I really do," Faith yelled over the roar of the wind and the blaring sirens, "If you were, I'd listen to you and everything would be peachy, but I can't do it. She might be headed back to Sunnydale right now."  
  
"Back to Sunnydale? Faith," he begged, "as your friend and your watcher, I'm begging you..."  
  
"I have to find Angel." She gave a flippant wave to the police cars that were following them, and then leapt out of the ambulance into the grassy turf before disappearing into the grove of trees that lined the highway. The ambulance came to an abrupt stop, and he had to grab the handle of the door to avoid being thrown onto the highway. Several police cars screeched to a halt or turned sharply. One car plowed into the concrete median. Wesley rested his head against the side of the open door.  
  
"Come back alive," he whispered to the horizon, "That's one thing you can do right." His cellular phone chirped in his breast pocket. He absently flipped it open and punched the button. "Hello, Angel," he whispered."  
  
"Wes," Angel's voice grunted, "You're never going to believe this, but-"  
  
"Buffy was the one who tried to kill Faith," he said flatly, "I know about it already."  
  
*****  
  
"Of course, I knew what you were up to," Hart said coolly, "I have all of Buffy's memories, all the information I could ever want on Angel, and a few questions of my own." Buffy's eyes had darkened. She looked more like Lilah than ever.  
  
"Questions?" Lindsey asked, trying to maintain a cool demeanor. Buffy crossed her legs and blew a cloud of smoke beneath the perfect o between her lips.  
  
"Why were you helping her escape?"  
  
Lindsey pursed his lips.  
  
"If you have Buffy's memories, you already know that."  
  
"Don't be stupid, Lindsey, a death wish never helped anyone," Buffy's voice chided him, "and what you're exhibiting is worse than a death wish. Do you really want to have your soul trapped in a hell dimension for all of your continued existence? Of course you don't, you want to save your slayer and run away to Sunnydale where you'll spend the rest of your days fighting evil with Willow and Xander. Forget it. Faith is dead, Buffy is gone. We'll just have to wait for the next slayer to show up. Maybe if we find her in time, I'll put Lilah in charge of training-"  
  
"What do you want with me?" Lindsey slammed his palm on the desk. Buffy looked surprised, and then laughed softly.  
  
"Temper, temper. Is that any way to talk to a lady? I don't think I've ever been a lady before. To be a slayer, even, that's something new," she put out her cigarette in the white ash tray near the edge of the desk.  
  
"Maybe it's because I have Buffy's memories and I know how good you are at what you do, and that I know you're too much of a wimp to really betray us- yes, she thought you were a wimp for not going with her, I'm going to let a few things slide. Consider it a gracious gift in return for finding me a body that can survive nearly anything and that doesn't have to wear a suit and tie to work every day." She flipped her darkened hair over her shoulder, "You're dismissed. Consider yourself lucky that I didn't decide to promote you too."  
  
It was raining when he drove back to his apartment. He cursed the weather and his situation as turned more sharply than he'd intended. Lindsey had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the shadowed figure that was standing in the middle of the street. A pale face came into view, with strands of dark hair plastered to her skin. She dashed to the drivers' side of the car and tapped on the window. He rolled it down just far enough to speak with her.  
  
"See?" she yelled to an unseen companion, "I told you I knew what his car looked like." Faith returned her attention to Lindsey, "So, I don't know how I can spell this out for you simply, but I know B loved this kind of stuff; you probably know all about that. I can tell you know where she is, and I'm a little too tired to beat it out of you right now." Angel appeared at her side.  
  
"I'm not," he growled. Faith raised her eyebrows and smirked at Lindsey.  
  
"See what I mean?" she taunted him, "Like I said... we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the fun way." Angel clutched the window of the car, and leaned menacingly into Lindsey's face.  
  
"What can you tell us about Buffy?" Lindsey pressed a button, and there was a clicking sound as the doors sprang into the unlocked state.  
  
"Get in," he ordered gruffly.  
  
Faith climbed into the back seat, and Angel sat next to Lindsey. Faith neglected to buckle her seat belt, but simply leaned forward so that she could easily lunge at the driver.  
  
"Lindsey, where is she?"  
  
"Gone," Lindsey replied. That single word reverberated in the silence that followed. For a few moments, they only heard the sound of the rain pounding against the roof of the car, and then their thoughts were interrupted by the blaring of the car horn behind them. They looked at each other, and Faith poked Lindsey in the ribs.  
  
"We're holding up traffic," she reminded them. Lindsey took the steering wheel.  
  
"They've promoted her, Angel," he said, "she's been possessed by something that has been running Wolfram and Hart since it was founded. We can't get her back."  
  
"Drive," Faith insisted, "I know who we need to talk to. Same guy who's been teaching me how to conjugate irregular Latin verbs while I balance a book on my head."  
  
****  
  
Lindsey had parked his car twelve blocks away from the offices of Angel Investigations. The three of them walked silently in the rain, and took the underground entrance into the warehouse. Lindsey and Faith wordlessly seated themselves at the kitchen table while Angel took the elevator to the upstairs office.  
  
"So," Faith said, "what was your plan, exactly? Were you and Buffy going to open up a satellite evil law firm, or stay within the family?" She winked at him. Lindsey bristled slightly at the question.  
  
"Do you normally begin conversations like this?" Faith helped herself to the box of graham crackers lying in the middle of the table.  
  
"Do you normally begin relationships like this?" she shot back, giving him one of her trademarked smirks. Before Lindsey had a chance to respond, Cordelia took a seat between them. She leveled her eyes at Lindsey; Faith found herself grinning at the similarity between Cordelia and Angel's glares.  
  
She looked back at Wesley. She felt relaxed in his presence; getting stabbed, shot at, bruised, and nearly killed had left her mind strangely clear. He had avoided her gaze since the impulsive kiss during the previous afternoon. Faith bit her lower lip and groaned inwardly. Truth be told, she had not expected to survive the day's ordeal to endure any of the potential awkwardness.  
  
Wesley set a book down; it was heavy enough to shake the table, and to knock the box of graham crackers from which Faith had been nibbling onto the ground. The book's cover had once been red, but had faded to a faint maroon color. Cordelia had to move her elbows to make room for the volume.  
  
"Don't we have any normal books?" she asked, "it might be a good idea to invest in a few pocket guides to the demon world. We are living in one of the most earthquake prone cities in the entire world. The books in our library would probably take out a few city blocks if they fell off the shelf."  
  
"The bigger, older, and harder to read a book is," Wesley pointed out, "the more likely it is that we'll find what we're looking for."  
  
"You're not going to find it in there," Lindsey interrupted them, "the interpreters aren't in any language that any of you could read." Wesley flipped to the center pages of the book.  
  
"Try me," he challenged Lindsey, "You say that Buffy has been possessed by interpreters? I thought the practice was completely archaic."  
  
"Except at Wolfram and Hart. That's how the senior partners have been around since the firm was founded. When one of the partners wants to take over a new body, first it has to be evacuated by the person who was controlling it before. Once it becomes an empty shell, then the demon takes over and lives out its victim's life," Lindsey finished. Cordelia sized him up with a glare.  
  
"And you *wanted* to go back to work for these people." Angel furrowed his brow thoughtfully.  
  
"So her soul is gone? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
"We'll get her back," Cordelia insisted, "for every curse, there is an equal and opposite counter curse."  
  
"Something like that," Wesley agreed, "This isn't like anything we've been up against, but theoretically speaking, one could... restore Buffy to her own body through a counter ritual," Wesley concluded.  
  
"It's never been done before," said Lindsey.  
  
Angel looked thoughtful for a moment.  
  
"Ritual of restoration." he concluded, "we could bring her back the same way that Willow restored my soul."  
  
"That could work," Cordelia agreed, "So what'll happen then? Does that mean that she'll have a demon inside of her forever and have to fight it constantly, like Angel does?" Angel pressed his lips together and looked more than a little irritated at Cordelia's appraisal of his situation.  
  
"But if we do it right, then Buffy will be in control of the spirit of Johnathan Hart," Wesley pointed out,” I know this isn't the traditional method of handling these sorts of things, but there is no other way to contain these spirits." Angel shook his head.  
  
"I'm not going to do that to her."  
  
"If you don't help her, she'll be gone forever," Lindsey argued. Angel glared at the lawyer.  
  
"So what do you want to do, Lindsey? Haven't you done enough?" Lindsey slammed his palm on the table.  
  
"I just want to get her back!" Everyone at the table fell silent. The confused look on Angel's face melted into anger as he realized what he was saying.  
  
"I can't believe this."  
  
"So Lindsey and Buffy were-" Cordelia started to say, "Oh... Angel." Cordelia followed him to the elevator.  
  
****  
  
"I don't think you're being fair to her," Cordelia protested, "Angel, have you even thought about what Buffy would want right now?"  
  
"No," Angel snapped, "I stopped thinking about that around the time she tried to kill me." The rickety elevator came to a stop near the office.  
  
"She didn't go through with it," Cordelia argued, "Didn't it seem like she wanted to get away from Wolfram and Hart?" Angel walked into his office. “Oh, I see," Cordelia snapped, "So this is what you're going to do? Hide in your office just because Buffy's with Lindsey? Didn't this whole thing happen because you spent several hours telling Buffy that the two of you didn't live in each other's worlds?" The door remained open, and Cordelia shoved her way into the office. "And what about Kate?" she raised her voice. Angel's posture seemed to stiffen at the mention of Kate's name, "So, what, you're allowed to move on with your unlife, but you're going to leave Buffy's soul floating in some other dimension just because of this?" Angel turned to face her again.  
  
"What's the real reason you want me to do this, Cordelia?" Cordelia lowered her eyes, "We... Angel, I think we need you to do the spell."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
Cordela faltered slightly. "Well, the last time I saw this spell done was two years ago in Sunnydale, and it nearly killed Willow. I don't know if Wesley could survive something like that, and you know, he's going to try it whether you help us or not."  
  
"It's nearly midnight," Angel pointed out, "the magic shop closes at eight."  
  
"We already have everything."  
  
The orb had been hidden in Wesley's desk, in the only locking drawer. The ritual of restoration was stored on a floppy disk; Cordelia had password protected the file with help from Willow over the phone. Looking at the orb made Angel feel slightly nauseated. He had to suppress the urge to smash it against the wall. Wesley had already drawn a circle in the middle of the kitchen floor.  
  
"Why did you have this?" Angel asked.  
  
"We bought it after that time you... became Angelus for a short time," Wesley said, "we just wanted to be able to bring you back if anything were to happen."  
  
"If you were to slip up and have a moment of happiness," Cordelia said, voicing the thoughts of everyone in the room, "Hey, you're only human... though not exactly." The sphere seemed to grow hotter in Angel's hands as he stared at the floating lights. He set it carefully in the middle of the circle, grateful not to have it touching his skin. Cordelia handed him the page she had printed from the computer. Her fingers had smudged the ink slightly, but it was still legible.  
  
Angel quickly scanned the room.  
  
"You let Lindsey get away?" Faith shrugged.  
  
"I wasn't going to stop him. He already told us everything we need to know."  
  
"Besides," Cordelia pointed out, "I think we all know where he's going. She's going to need him."  
  
When Angel touched the orb, the lights in the room flickered and the electricity went out completely. The only light came from the center, where Angel began to read the text aloud.  
  
****  
  
Johnathan Hart was in his office when the electricity went out. He knew that something was wrong when felt Buffy's hands shaking. He had to close his eyes against the ache that was forming in his head, the invasive aches that were taking over Buffy's body.  
  
It was dark inside her mind, and she could hear other, evil voices whose words pulsed through her like electricity. She came to a wall in the darkness, and tried to claw her way through it before the unnatural sounds could touch her. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light in Johnathan Hart's office as the memories came flooding back. Buffy regained consciousness in her own body, but she could feel voices echoing in her mind. One sounded like Angel's voice, calling her from far away. She was trying to reach him with her mind, to follow the sound of his voice.  
  
Lindsey found Buffy lying on the ground in Hart's office. Her small hands grasped the wall, and her legs were curled under her torso. She shivered as she sobbed something incoherent. Buffy screeched when she felt Lindsey's palm on her spine, but relaxed when she heard his voice.  
  
"Shh," he whispered, "Can you walk, Buffy?" Being addressed by her own name seemed to awaken her. She turned her head from the wall, and moved her fists away from it.  
  
"Lindsey?" she asked, "where are we?" He pulled her to her feet. Her natural strength seemed to propel her forward as they walked to the door.  
  
"We're in a bad place, Buffy, but we're going to get out of here. Just keep your head up as we walk and act like you're leading me out of this building if we see anyone."  
  
"I'm Johnathan Hart,"  
  
"Your name is Buffy Summers," he corrected her. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.  
  
Lindsey, can you take me to see Angel?" She requested groggily.


	8. Chapter 8

Buffy found Angel staring down at the city from the top of the warehouse. She paused a few steps behind him until he turned to face her.  
  
"Hey," she said casually, "is this roof taken?" He smiled, and a let her lean her elbows on the barrier next to him  
  
"How are you feeling?" he asked.  
  
"Better, now that this is about to be over," Buffy told him, "I'm so used to running in and kicking ass; this whole 'using the system' thing is a little new to me. I still can't get the brown out of my hair. It doesn't look too bad, does it?" She put a hand to her forehead, "Now Jonathan Hart is telling me to be glad that I have hair, because he went bald in several different bodies."  
  
"He still talks to you?" asked Angel.  
  
"Sometimes. When I'm thinking of anything that has to do with Wolfram and Hart, he gets louder. He tries to take control. It's got to be driving him crazy to have a conscience after spending all that time with none of those inconvenient emotions getting in the way." She paused, "Does Angelus ever talk to you?"  
  
"All the time," he replied. Buffy sighed.  
  
"I'm sorry. I just don't know how to deal with all this. It's like I'm trying to fight what's outside along with what's in here. Angel, how can you stand it?"  
  
"You just have to tell yourself every day that you know who you are, and that no one- not even the thing that lives inside of you- can ever take that away. In the end, your soul is yours. Even if it leaves your body and gets lost, it still belongs to you. It's worth fighting for."  
  
"Angel advice," she smiled, "I've really missed that, you know?" There was a long silence.  
  
"Are you going back to Sunnydale?" he asked.  
  
"I don't think so," she admitted, "It seems kind of pointless now. Riley seems to have everything under control, and I don't know if I can see Xander and Willow or.. Oh God, Giles, for a little while."  
  
"I understand," he sighed, "So, how are things with you and Lindsey." She looked at him for a moment, and then smiled tenderly.  
  
"It hurt you to ask that, didn't it?" As she smiled, the diamonds at her earlobes seemed to sparkle in response to his question.  
  
"Like Hell," he admitted.  
  
"How are things with what's her name?"  
  
"Kate? Not so good right now. Ask me again once she decides to speak to me."  
  
Buffy touched her chin to his shoulder as she wrapped her forearms around his back in a platonic hug.  
  
"Thank you, Angel. Thank you for everything."  
  
He didn't say anything. After she had vanished into the doorway, he whispered a "you're welcome" to the traffic on the streets several stories below.  
  
*****  
  
Lilah drummed her fingernails on the side of her chair.  
  
"How did they get her on the opposing council?" Lee asked.  
  
"Well, it would seem that we postponed the trial for as long as we could, and she managed to pass the bar, get a license, and pull some strings during that time," Lilah snapped, "Jonathan Hart didn't need to go to law school. Buffy Summers doesn't need experience; technically, she was a senior partner of Wolfram and Hart for a whole week. Remember?"  
  
"So once again, one of our brilliant plans to get rid of Angel has come back to bite us in every way imaginable," Lee concluded.  
  
"Once again, he screwed us out of our assassin," she corrected him.  
  
"Her hair is blonde again," Lee whispered to Lilah when Buffy entered the courtroom.  
  
"I can see what color her hair is," Lilah hissed. Lilah could also see that Buffy was still wearing the black suit that she had purchased on Wolfram and Hart's company credit card, and that she muttered to herself when she sat with the rest of the council. She looked as if she was arguing with some invisible force over which she had no control. Across the courtroom, Lindsey periodically whispered something incomprehensible in her ear. Lilah rolled her eyes in disgust. How they had saved Buffy from being an interpreter, she didn't know, but that didn't excuse Lindsey's stupidity.  
  
"Faith's sentence has been reduced," Lee told her, "Testifying in this trial could get her on parole a lot faster." Lilah gritted her teeth.  
  
"Are you trying to make me angry, Lee? I gave the bitch my last bottle of pills, so I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."  
  
"Ah, the magical pills," Lee chided, "You take more of them than anyone, don't you?"  
  
"Hey, I get the job done," Lilah retorted as Buffy prepared to give the opposing council's opening remarks.  
  
"Apparently, so does Buffy."  
  
*****  
  
"Can't I make it stop?" Buffy whined as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, "It's giving me a headache."  
  
"Headache?" Cordelia asked as she waltzed into the courtroom. Wesley followed closely behind her, carrying a black attaché, "You don't know what a headache is, little slayer girl. Try receiving a dead man's visions of destruction for a week, and then we'll talk migraines."  
  
"What?!?" Buffy contorted her face as she pressed her palm flat against the top of her head.  
  
"You've been away for a bit," Wesley told her, "We'll catch you up on the details later." Faith draped an arm across Wesley's shoulders, obviously enjoying the crimson blush that spread across his cheeks.  
  
More softly this time, Cordelia said, "Midol usually works." Buffy wrinkled her nose  
  
"It's not really that kind of headache. It's more of a ringing in my ears. Like my brain is going off in two different tangents, and I need to stop one of them… tangents. Do I say 'tangents?'" She slammed her palms against her temples, "What's him? What's me now?"  
  
"Don't stop Hart just yet," Lindsey told her, "I don't think I could pull off something like this, but Jonathan Hart sure as hell could." Buffy glared at him.  
  
"And I couldn't?"  
  
"Of course you could," Lindsey hastily added, "and you will." He kissed her briskly on the cheek and whispered, "Good luck." When the judge entered the courtroom, everyone rose. Buffy stood shakily in the dark high heels Lilah had chosen so many months ago. Was it going to be like this for the rest of her life? Would she always have two voices, two inner monologues, and two contradictory opinions fighting each other?  
  
Jonathan Hart told her to calm down and to let him take control for a few minutes. She winced inwardly at the idea.  
  
"Thanks, but I think I'm going to have to do this myself," she replied. The spirit inside her reluctantly obeyed as she cleared her throat in front of a silent courtroom.  
  
"This is the opening statement of the prosecution," she began, "we are here today for one reason only, and that is to uphold the law. However, there are those who would twist these laws for purposes other than protection and attempt to enable the faultless to pay and the guilty to walk out of this courtroom. In essence, these people are treading on sacred ground."  
  
She looked around the courtroom to see the terrified look on the faces of Lilah and Lee, and the contempt in Holland Manners' eyes. There were many other secrets to be learned, but Buffy was content with not knowing them for now. There were others to save, and she was probably going to be even busier than she had ever been in Sunnydale. She herself had tread on sacred ground, and had a lifetime of penance to do for it. If anyone would understand that, it would be the employees of Angel Investigations.  
  
As one of the lawyers representing the junior partners of Wolfram and Hart called her first witness, Lilah closely watched Buffy's lips moving. The girl fumbled at the pockets of her suit as though searching for something she had lost. Lilah drew in a sharp breath as she realized that Buffy was groping for cigarettes. Buffy Summers didn't smoke. Jonathan Hart had to keep his office door open so that the various bodies he inhabited wouldn't die of asphyxiation. With one gesture, Jonathan and Buffy had betrayed themselves.  
  
"So they didn't get rid of him," she mused, "she's just the one in control." Lilah scribbled a note on the legal pad that she habitually kept at trials- even her own.  
  
*****  
  
Buffy was outside of the courthouse when she met Faith. A lit cigarette was dangling between her lips.  
  
"Since when do you smoke?" Faith demanded. Buffy narrowed her eyes at the other slayer.  
  
"I don't."  
  
"Oh. Right." Faith leaned against the brick wall, "Feels like old times, doesn't it? We could go patrolling tonight."  
  
"Another time," Buffy promised, "right now, I just want to sleep. I haven't been able to sleep in a while."  
  
"Was it the John Grisham novels or the reruns of Law and Order that were keeping you awake?" Faith asked.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Five by- actually, I feel like I've been shot through the chest with an invisible enchanted arrow," Faith said, "So does this mean we put all this behind us?" Faith asked seriously.  
  
"What you're saying is, 'you betrayed me, I've betrayed you, so we're even now?'"  
  
"If that's what works for you."  
  
Buffy flicked the smoking cigarette into the air, and Faith watched the trail of smoke as it fell to the ground. The line faded into nothingness.  
  
"I've just been thinking about what I said at the trial today," she admitted.  
  
"The bit about treading on sacred ground?"  
  
"That wasn't Johnathan's idea," she told Faith, "it was me. I just feel like a hypocrite for saying something like that, when I've stomped all over everything that I believed in."  
  
"Well, when you think about it," Faith concluded, "Nothing's really sacred. Sacred means that once you defile it, there's no getting back to what you were. I mean, look at me. I screwed up everything in Sunnydale, but I'm still the one driving these impulses into the ground, right? Same goes for Lindsey and Angel."  
  
"Nothing's sacred anymore," Buffy answered, "I always thought that was kind of depressing, but maybe it isn't. Maybe it means there's a chance for all of us… even if the odds are stacked." Faith rotated her arms far enough to crack her shoulder blades.  
  
"Yeah, well… there's nothing else we can really take a gamble on, B."  
  
"You know what I've felt like doing ever since we got out of the courtroom?" Buffy asked. Faith shook her head.  
  
"I give up. What?"  
  
Buffy opened her mouth and let out a primal scream that rang like a siren in her own ears. It sent Jonathan Hart cringing in some dark corner of her mind if only for a second. An instant later, Faith joined in with a "whooo!"  
  
They remained oblivious to the stares of the people passing them, and continued screeching into the night.  
  
"Changed your mind?" Faith asked. Buffy reached for the stake inside her crisp linen jacket.  
  
"Let's go."


End file.
